Climate Change Inaction and Optimism
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is an exceptional paper. The following are a few suggested edits.
Line 50- comma after bracket
Line 70-comma after problems
Line 110-comma after outlook
Line 127 – comma after Greeks
Line 130-comma after effect
Line 147-comma after problematical
line. 164-comma after recognized
line 165-comma after future
line 222-comma after reasons
line 227—comma after instance
line 235- comma after true
line 237-comma after is
line 375—comma after despair
line 385—comma after remote
line 388—capital C for canticle
line 406-comma after countries
line 423—comma after error
Author Response
Of the 17 punctuation changes suggested, I have complied with 16 (the 17th was an error – at ‘line 227 – comma after instance’). In re-reading the MS I have added some commas of my own to make the style more consistent.
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper engages with a timely subject. The paper covered many different relevant topics, but it wasn’t clear to me what the thread of the argument was, or how all of the sections linked together into a coherent whole. Just as an example, it wasn’t clear what section 11 contributed to the overall picture. It was not clear to me that there was a compelling unified account of optimism. There appear to be many different angles, such as Global Optimism, optimism and the UN, optimism and orthodox economics (section 13) and hardship. It is clearly a very well-researched article, but it did not offer a compelling argument for the idea that optimism fosters inaction, especially in light of the fact that there wasn’t a distinct account of optimism to work with. The first sentence of the abstract says that the problem of climate change inaction has “been seen as a collective action problem, which is correct but inconsequential”, but then, in the conclusion it states: “climate action is not difficult to understand, and its logical basis is correctly identified as a tragedy of the commons”, which is itself a collective action problem. So it wasn’t clear to me exactly what was going on here. There was a lot going on in the paper with many different themes and concepts outlined. I think that the paper would benefit from narrowing the focus more tightly on the idea of collective action problems and optimism in more detail.
Some further comments:
Line 4-5: It is said that the problem of climate change is also seen as a collective action problem, “which is correct but inconsequential”. It is not clear why it is inconsequential. And if so, why it is introduced as being a collective action problem.
Line 32-3: It is said that “wicked” policies are not correct. But it is not clear why policies themselves need to be “correct”, rather than sufficient for the job, effective, promoting the most social good, etc.
Line 79-80: trust can feature in game theory, such as the “stag hunt” or assurance game.
Line 80-1: Not clear that tit for tat is the best strategy for repeated games. Prisoner’s dilemma, perhaps, but there are other strategies, and for other repeated games.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
This all looks good.
