The frog syndrome: the economy and the climate.

Summary The back cover states: "An unfortunate frog put in a cooking pot tolerates a steady rise in water temperature, whereas a sudden scalding would make it react immediately. In the same way, global warming is insidious: it is only perceptible on the scale of a decade, or even a century, does not imply any urgent decision and, in fact, is regularly pushed back on the agenda of policies whose horizon rarely exceeds a few years. However, in the environmental field, the delay between action and its impact is at least fifty years. Only an ethical and anthropological point of view taking into account the survival of the human species could solve the dilemma, but as Homo oeconomicus we are calculating individuals acting out of self-interest, and for whom the environment is an infinite and free resource. In the ordinary economic game, there is no "ecological rate of interest", as shown by the inevitable disappearance, under the effect of economic laws, of fish resources. It is thus to a broader conception of humanity and to a renewal of ethics that the author invites us, failing to see the human species, victim of the economic thought, share the sad fate of the cod, the bluefin tuna and the frog.