Red herring. The tragedy of the commons is a parable that advocates neither capitalism nor socialism. It advocates the existence of a _responsible manager_ for

Red herring. The tragedy of the commons is a parable that advocates neither capitalism nor socialism. It advocates the existence of a _responsible manager_ for any resource subject to exhaustion. Whether that manager should be a capitalist owner or a public entity is a separate question that comes in later. And of course, it is entirely irrelevant whether the events described really happened. The broken window fallacy doesn't refer to one particular window-breaking incident. Anyway, the concretization of the parable to the subject at hand is actually very straightforward: the atmosphere is the commons, and the carbon emitters are the commoners. Enclosures are an impossible solution this time, because we need to let the air to circulate freely. But the parable still teaches us the need for a single entity to be on charge of the atmosphere. National-level solutions - much less individual action - can only be a delaying tactic at best: the ozone layer was only saved by the Montreal Protocol. I'm old enough to remember public service messages encouraging the population to refrain from using unnecessary spray bottles, and that would have helped about as much as Dutch bikers help against global warming.