We attempted to consider Albarella island as a model for estimating the ability of humans and the capacity of the environment to react to climate change. On its 550 hectares, this island hosts management centers, 2800 private homes, several restaurants and hotels, shops, public and private swimming pools, a golf course, beaches, green areas equipped to satisfy the 2,000 stable inhabitants and more than 110,000 annual tourists. We collected data on the following variables: 1) net storage of the semi-natural ecosystems; 2) diet of humans staying on the island; 3) fossil energy currently used to keep the island economically active; 4) electricity demand; 5) waste produced and 6) transportation. A dynamic simulation model of the island’s CO2 equivalent emissions proposes two scenarios that illustrate how these variables can change over the next 10 years if the management remains that of the present days, or switching to all photovoltaics, proposing new diets to inhabitants and tourists, planting trees on half of the island’s lawns. In the second case, CO2 eq emissions lowered to a level of 50 years ago (10 kt y-1). Taken to the level of planet Earth, the model nurtures a seed of hope.