Irreversibility: Why an Omelette can Never Become an Egg Again and What this has to do with Species Extinction

When dealing with environmental problems, it is important to consider that certain developments cannot be reversed or can only be undone with enormous effort. Just as it is intuitively clear to us that we cannot turn back time, we should be aware that this is also true for many processes in the environment. Our efforts to preserve our natural basis of life will have a greater chance to succeed if we take into account the irreversibility of environmental damage, such as species extinction. Awareness of irreversibility is often not sufficiently pronounced in politics and economics. In economics, whose representatives have a major influence on politics and society today, irreversibility has long played no or only a subordinate role. This continues to lead to significant weaknesses in dealing with environmental problems. We illustrate the significance of irreversibility at the current debate concerning the use of carbon capture technologies in hydrogen production.