Tragedy of the Commons (TOTC)
Think about this:
There is a large pasture held by a group of individuals. Each individual owns a sheep on the pasture and privately keep adding more sheep to the pasture. Because there are so many sheep on the pasture, the sheep end up overgrazing the land causing the carrying capacity to decrease exponentially. Not all the sheep can survive and so the sheep end up dying along with the land.
This metaphor is referred to as the Tragedy of the Commons.
There is a large pasture held by a group of individuals. Each individual owns a sheep on the pasture and privately keep adding more sheep to the pasture. Because there are so many sheep on the pasture, the sheep end up overgrazing the land causing the carrying capacity to decrease exponentially. Not all the sheep can survive and so the sheep end up dying along with the land.
This metaphor is referred to as the Tragedy of the Commons.
http://loosemoorings.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/cow.png
Definition
According to Princeton University, the Tragedy of the Commons is defined as a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen. Thus there is a great incentive to consume all of the resources before someone else takes them.
In 1968, the concept of the Tragedy of the Commons was first introduced and published by a man named Garrett Hardin. Hardin's article influenced and supported the notion of sustainable development, meshing economic growth and environmental protection. The article is often referenced in debates over global warming.
Link to part of the article
In 1968, the concept of the Tragedy of the Commons was first introduced and published by a man named Garrett Hardin. Hardin's article influenced and supported the notion of sustainable development, meshing economic growth and environmental protection. The article is often referenced in debates over global warming.
Link to part of the article
A Brief Video of TOTC
The Premise of the Tragedy of the Commons
Philosopher Herschel Elliott concluded that there are four general premises that entail the Tragedy of the Commons. First being that Earth's resources are not infinite. We do not have unlimited stocks of renewable fuels, minerals or biological resources. The second is that although private land is not considered common resources, it is still within a larger natural common. We are a limited biosystem which requires a constant equilibrium to survive. If there is a small population, as long as the activities on the commons are limited, the equilibrium of a biosystem can be maintained. However this is not the case. Populations continue to grow on a large scale and exploit the land. Soon the biosystem will not be able to support the population. Third, it is noted that in all of human history, it is the first time humans are exceeding the land and resource use which the Earth's biosystem can sustain. Lastly, indeed it is the people that maximize their material consumption that contribute to the depletion of resources, but it is also every single person on the planet that does so as well. It is not just the people who purposely exploit. We are all exploiting the world's commons.
What are Common Resources?
Common resources are any resources unowned, or owned by a group that share them. The resource must be accessible for use. As our population grows or the number of members of a group grow, the common resources are destroyed faster. Therefore, over-population is directly linked to TOTC.
Examples of common resources are:
-Air. No one can own the air and its available to everyone. Air is fortunately unlimited but much of our air is polluted.
-Water. No one can own the ocean's water. Some lakes are owned by nations but are still a common resource to individuals of that nation.
-Fish. Fish are part of the water and are not owned directly by an individual.
Examples of common resources are:
-Air. No one can own the air and its available to everyone. Air is fortunately unlimited but much of our air is polluted.
-Water. No one can own the ocean's water. Some lakes are owned by nations but are still a common resource to individuals of that nation.
-Fish. Fish are part of the water and are not owned directly by an individual.
Real Life Examples of TOTC
Top 6 Tragedies of the Commons (in no particular order)
1. Overfishing - Apex predators in the ocean have declined by 90% since 1950. At this rate the worlds ocean population will be gone by the year 2050. Fish such as Sharks and Tuna represent a great profit for fishermen and so there population has been declining.
2. Traffic - Public roads and highways are used by people because it is the fastest route, but as more people use the freeway it clogs up the roads decreasing the average speed of the road. Each driver uses the highway out of there own personal interest and ends up making it slower for everybody. The solutions to this problem include toll pay routes and carpooling to a destination.
3. Greenhoouse Gases - CO2 emissions are constantly being put into the atmosphere, and being churned into the carbon cycle. Industrial plants and factories emit large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere which destroys the ozone layer as well as damaging the Earth's ocean and forests.
4. Logging - Large amounts of tropical forests in the world are left unregulated and so logging occurs in these habitats for as much wood as they can as cheaply as they can remove it. Rain forest's are permanently destroyed because of the "free for all" between logging companies. Even in areas where there are laws in place for rain forests, illegal logging still occurs.
5. Waste in Water Supply - Common spaces such as the Ocean are often abused because it is not regulated by one single country. Over the years the worlds ocean have been subject to much waste as well as cities natural water supplies. The water is able to cleanse it self if the waste is not too great, but water supplies can become polluted and unusable.
6. Population Growth - Exponential population growth is also considered as an example of the tragedy of the commons. In this case, the resource is planet Earth, and all the resources on Earth is being shared among every single individual. This shows that the tragedy of the commons is always not a result of being greedy over resources. It could be just from existing. The population of growth is increasing greatly and is now at a 7 billion mark. Just by existing, all the human beings use air, water, land and food resources. Every individual on earth (7 billion and still growing) using up a fair amount of resources really shows how this is a great example of the tragedy of the commons.
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/ten-reallife-examples-of-the-tragedy-of-the-common.html
1. Overfishing - Apex predators in the ocean have declined by 90% since 1950. At this rate the worlds ocean population will be gone by the year 2050. Fish such as Sharks and Tuna represent a great profit for fishermen and so there population has been declining.
2. Traffic - Public roads and highways are used by people because it is the fastest route, but as more people use the freeway it clogs up the roads decreasing the average speed of the road. Each driver uses the highway out of there own personal interest and ends up making it slower for everybody. The solutions to this problem include toll pay routes and carpooling to a destination.
3. Greenhoouse Gases - CO2 emissions are constantly being put into the atmosphere, and being churned into the carbon cycle. Industrial plants and factories emit large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere which destroys the ozone layer as well as damaging the Earth's ocean and forests.
4. Logging - Large amounts of tropical forests in the world are left unregulated and so logging occurs in these habitats for as much wood as they can as cheaply as they can remove it. Rain forest's are permanently destroyed because of the "free for all" between logging companies. Even in areas where there are laws in place for rain forests, illegal logging still occurs.
5. Waste in Water Supply - Common spaces such as the Ocean are often abused because it is not regulated by one single country. Over the years the worlds ocean have been subject to much waste as well as cities natural water supplies. The water is able to cleanse it self if the waste is not too great, but water supplies can become polluted and unusable.
6. Population Growth - Exponential population growth is also considered as an example of the tragedy of the commons. In this case, the resource is planet Earth, and all the resources on Earth is being shared among every single individual. This shows that the tragedy of the commons is always not a result of being greedy over resources. It could be just from existing. The population of growth is increasing greatly and is now at a 7 billion mark. Just by existing, all the human beings use air, water, land and food resources. Every individual on earth (7 billion and still growing) using up a fair amount of resources really shows how this is a great example of the tragedy of the commons.
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/ten-reallife-examples-of-the-tragedy-of-the-common.html
Pollution
The tragedy of the commons shows up again in problems dealing with pollution. This is a reverse issue because you are not taking something out of the commons to cause problems but instead putting something in, such as harmful chemical, radioactive and heat wastes into the water, and dangerous fumes into the atmosphere. A man’s share of the cost of the waste he produces and releases into the commons is less than the cost to actually purify the waste before releasing them. This is true for everybody on earth and due to this we are locked into a system of “fouling our own nest”
The tragedy of the commons as a food basket is prevented by private property. The air and waters surrounding us cannot readily be isolated and so the tragedy of the commons must be prevented by other ways, such as laws or taxing devices that make it cheaper for the polluter to treat his pollutants than to release them without purifying it. For example the owner of a factory on the bank of a stream whose property extends to the middle of the stream of has difficulty seeing why it is not his right to muddy the waters flowing past his door. The pollution problem is a consequence of population. As population on earth increased and became denser, the natural chemical and biological recycling processes became overloaded, calling for a redefinition of property rights.
Eco Barons
Eco barons are rich people who buy large plots of land to conserve earth's natural world. The founder of the clothing company Esprit, Douglas Tompkins, actually bought a huge chunk of land in Chile to conserve. Eco barons around the world are planning on buying/creating a green ring around the world that will be untouchable by all the mining companies, forestry companies, fisheries, etc.
This idea is helping to conserve the commons. It's calculated that this ring will be sufficient enough to sustain life on our planet even if we deplete the resources everywhere else on the world.
This idea is helping to conserve the commons. It's calculated that this ring will be sufficient enough to sustain life on our planet even if we deplete the resources everywhere else on the world.
Solutions
There is no technical solution to prevent the tragedy of the commons, instead we as humans must have a change in values as a society. The people of Tikopia, Japan prevented tragedy by limiting there populations to a sustainable amount. In the broad spectrum of modern society this is unrealistic, thus there must be certain regulations put in place by the government to prevent the abuse of our finite resources. The greed of out society has made it beneficial to companies to keep digging for coal, overfishing etc. The mentality of short term gain needs to be changed so that the earth's resources are not wiped out in our lifetime. Individuals feel the benefits of the short term gain in there action, but often do not see the harm they caused over the long term.
Economists believe there are two options to prevent the tragedy, the first being privatizing the commons and the second is to allow the government to regulate them. Privatizing the commons would mean giving each section of resources whether it be fishing, logging, mining to one single corporation. By making the resources private instead of public, the owner of the land etc. will reuse it, and so it would be in there best interest to properly take care of and maintain it. Instead of the current "free for all" like system where many different groups are battling to extract the most of one resource and having no incentive to replenish. By Privatizing the commons this one singular group would be able to meet the demands of the market without causing inflation and destroying the resource. The second option is to allow the government to regulate. This is essentially the same idea as privatizing the commons only the single group would be the government. The government would meet the demands of the market, or instead hire various companies to extract the resources and then set a tax for overuse. For instance the Norwegian government has set a tax on releasing CO2 into the environment, making it more cost effective to store CO2.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/tragedyofthecommons.htm
http://www.aei.org/article/economics/elinor-ostrom-and-the-solution-to-the-tragedy-of-the-commons/
http://www.planetseed.com/relatedarticle/tragedy-commons
Economists believe there are two options to prevent the tragedy, the first being privatizing the commons and the second is to allow the government to regulate them. Privatizing the commons would mean giving each section of resources whether it be fishing, logging, mining to one single corporation. By making the resources private instead of public, the owner of the land etc. will reuse it, and so it would be in there best interest to properly take care of and maintain it. Instead of the current "free for all" like system where many different groups are battling to extract the most of one resource and having no incentive to replenish. By Privatizing the commons this one singular group would be able to meet the demands of the market without causing inflation and destroying the resource. The second option is to allow the government to regulate. This is essentially the same idea as privatizing the commons only the single group would be the government. The government would meet the demands of the market, or instead hire various companies to extract the resources and then set a tax for overuse. For instance the Norwegian government has set a tax on releasing CO2 into the environment, making it more cost effective to store CO2.
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/tragedyofthecommons.htm
http://www.aei.org/article/economics/elinor-ostrom-and-the-solution-to-the-tragedy-of-the-commons/
http://www.planetseed.com/relatedarticle/tragedy-commons
Psychological Causes
The leading factor to these tragedies is human interaction, psychologically we can delve in to the human elements that lead to tragedies of the commons. Psychologists have pinpointed causes to social motives, greed, status, power, selfishness and a common motive of doing what is best in your own self interest rather then the groups common good. "We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." The attitude of modern society has created a boon to tragedies of the commons, the modern mindset of needing the newest, biggest, latest thing leads to a constant.
Solution cont.
In the case of global warming and climate change, the solutions for the issue are both technical and behavioural. The technical solution is that we can use the energy more efficiently and increase the use of alternative energy sources that do not result in a high production of carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide that do produce, we can capture it and store it so it does not cause too much harm. This gives a technical solution to it. The problem is the behavioural part.
The problem is that everyone that act in their own ways and intentions feel immediate gain from their behavior. The issue here is that the loss from the global warming issue is not something that’s felt immediately. For example you can drive a cool car that’s very comforting and satisfies you. The problem that you will feel is when sea levels rise or storms get hectic but this may be decades away. People don’t see any immediate connection between the actions their responsible for and the negative consequences, just because it is still many years away. People don’t notice and don’t realize that what they are doing is building up and will have a negative effect. It may not be instantly but it will happen sooner or later.
A solution for a problem like this is for people as a group make a decision to change the behaviour of everyone, including themselves. A way to do this is to cause climate friendly actions to have very quick positive outcomes. For example, in the Sleipner gas field in the North Sea. The Norwegian government captures and store carbon dioxide instead than just releasing it into the atmosphere. The only thing getting in the way is that there is a tax on carbon dioxide that is being released. It does cost money to do this, but it does have a positive impact on the environment.
The problem is that everyone that act in their own ways and intentions feel immediate gain from their behavior. The issue here is that the loss from the global warming issue is not something that’s felt immediately. For example you can drive a cool car that’s very comforting and satisfies you. The problem that you will feel is when sea levels rise or storms get hectic but this may be decades away. People don’t see any immediate connection between the actions their responsible for and the negative consequences, just because it is still many years away. People don’t notice and don’t realize that what they are doing is building up and will have a negative effect. It may not be instantly but it will happen sooner or later.
A solution for a problem like this is for people as a group make a decision to change the behaviour of everyone, including themselves. A way to do this is to cause climate friendly actions to have very quick positive outcomes. For example, in the Sleipner gas field in the North Sea. The Norwegian government captures and store carbon dioxide instead than just releasing it into the atmosphere. The only thing getting in the way is that there is a tax on carbon dioxide that is being released. It does cost money to do this, but it does have a positive impact on the environment.