Tragedy Of The Commons
“[T]hey devote a very small fraction of time to the consideration of any public object, most of it to the prosecution of their own objects. Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come to his neglect, that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause imperceptibly decays.” – Thucydides (ca. 460 B.C.-ca. 395 B.C.)
News of the giant garbage patch floating in the Pacific Ocean, probably the greatest patch of waste on earth, has circled the globe by now, becoming the subject of news shows, environmental shows, science programs, documentaries, interviews and other news. It is a catastrophe in the making and a great loss to our quality of life. It is
source: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/12/are-there-reall.html
also part of a greater problem, one that is so out of control and beyond any scale we can imagine, some of us may have a hard time understanding how serious it really is. It’s name is the Tragedy of the Commons.
The issue is simple. Let us focus on the floating garbage patch as prime example to showcase it.
If we had to sum up what is happening in the Pacific right now in a few words, it would go like this: the entire Pacific Ocean has become a waste dump. From ships going out at sea to dispose of things, to sewers and waste pipes finding their way down to the water, tons and tons of waste is dumped into the ocean. Why? Because it is common and unregulated territory. Not having clear ownership or stewardship of it, as with all things common and unminded, leads to confusion, damage, and abuse.
Here’s an example of how it goes. Put one hundred farmers on a patch of land able to sustain one hundred cows only, telling them they may allow only one cow each on that patch. Do not fence the land down to smaller sections but leave it common for all to use. With each farmer not assigned a specific grazing lot within that patch, for which he or she is accountable, what tends to happen is that each farmer spreads his or her cow across the patch, trying to get it to graze as much as it can to get that little extra edge over other farmers. While they’re at it, and since no one’s looking, they
may even add another cow to the herd. Who’s going to notice an extra cow among one hundred? What harm can one more animal do?
The farmers go ahead, introducing extra head after head for their own benefit, and after a while, lo and behold, there’s one hundred and fifty cows grazing on it. Other farmers protest and call meetings to resolve the issue, but by the time they reach an agreement, the patch has been over-consumed and is no longer able to sustain any cows. It needs a year’s break to replenish itself. The cows die, or they are shipped somewhere else, where they over-saturate another patch of land, and the problem spreads.
It is a tragedy all too common on common land, one that is easily avoided if each farmer is assigned his or her lot from the onset, a specific area in which their cows can graze and for which they are responsible and accountable. Once assigned to it, they tend to take care of it and not abuse it. They do not introduce extra animals on it because they know it depletes the grass. They don’t affect other areas of the land because separated as they are, the lots in the field are easily monitored by each farmer and not easy to infiltrate. The patch in its entirety can thus, as a collection of individual units, sustain one hundred cows year indefinitely.
source: http://officesuppliesguy.wordpress.com
The insight is simple and it works. If only we applied it consistently, across the board. But we don’t, there is still too much common land and resource everywhere, lending itself to abuse and depletion, despite the evidence against this approach. Communism may have been proven faulty and dangerous, and was rejected as a system over the course of the previous century, prone as it was to common resources and few individual rights, but the tragedy of the commons persists throughout the world, under the radar. We are all familiar with it in one form or another.
Here are a few everyday examples to see how close to home it really is:
• Office material and supplies in companies and businesses: they tend to disappear, break down or get stolen because they are common property. The Xerox machine and the printer get abused. Pens and paper are snatched and electricity and running water are wasted.
• The civil service: it tends to be slower, more bureaucratic and much less efficient than the private sector because people are less accountable in its setup. With jobs guaranteed and little competition between positions, all benefits taken care of by unions and state pensions, and no one really getting fired except in times of austerity or privatization, given departments become giant common playgrounds, where responsibility is tossed around from desk to desk, stalling what needs to be done. Those among us who have gone to any government department to get a simple form signed and had to wait a whole day for it, arguing with inconsiderate, inefficient civil servants over small details know how bad it can get.
source: http://www.time.com/time
• Charity money given to charity organizations: it tends to be misused or get diluted to less impact. It is spread out across the board to cover various agenda, trickling down to assigned areas in smaller fractions, alleviating some of the given burden without actually giving people hope that someone is looking out for them in ways that make a difference. Having the Red Cross ship in wheat or health supplies is beneficial in times of crisis, no doubt about it, but having a sponsor assigned to a family starving in Africa or India, letting them know that they are not mere numbers in a sea of faces but actual persons, whose names their benefactors know and whose cases they monitor, is even better.
• Tax money absorbed by the government: it is reallocated to giant and complex government mechanisms that have not rightfully earned it. The people working there are in effect working with money that is not theirs, and which is taken for granted – not made but collected by law – so they tend to misuse or abuse it. Whatever monies find their way down to a public project or initiative are more often than not less than what went in to begin with – and much less than what would have been
rough surface area and location of plastic garbage dumps source: http://www.dailygalaxy.com
“skimmed” in a sector where funds are earned and not siphoned. In short people tend to abuse common pools of money.
• The seas as international waters and not anyone’s assigned responsibility, for which someone can be held accountable: they have become giant waste grounds because no one is regulating what goes on in there. Those who do monitor the waters, from science organizations to environmental and other civil groups, have no authority or muscle to prevent what is happening, and the tragedy of the common waters continues unabated.
• The air, another area common to all human beings: it is abused to unprecedented degree. All kinds of substances are released into the atmosphere as if there is no tomorrow, forgetting that this is a closed loop which will be saturated at some point. In other words, it’s as if we have locked ourselves
source: http://www.earthshots.org/2010/08/ by Alessandro Vannucci
in the garage and left the car running. We don’t care because it’s a pretty big garage and the fumes get diluted over volume, but sooner or later the air is tainted and we are wondering why we are feeling faint and weak.
• The soil suffers like the air. Another common area, where things are being dumped, overused and abused because no one is really responsible for the earth’s sub-terrain.
• Earth’s resources are perhaps the greatest common tragedy of all. Open to prospecting and up for grabs as they are, they start off as common property. First come first served, by which time they become private property. While this is good for business and development, as well as for competition and social mobility, it is tragic for the planet, and for us too in the long run, because no one really monitors how these resources can be replenished. Prospecting and development become the means to an end in an out-of-control rat race, where everyone tries to get whatever they can with no regard for the future. Oil reserves are being depleted – actually that may be a good thing, good riddance and not a moment too soon – as are the forests, natural gas reserves, fresh water reserves, minerals, oxygen, fish, land, you name it, it is being eaten up. We show no regard for the future, all sense of strategy and planning thrown out the window. Just an endless run at common resources, forgetting that when they run out, so will we.
Common property and unaccountability clearly result in neglect and abuse. All sense of reason in people’s and organizations action is eliminated in the wake of not feeling responsible or affected by what is going on. Some of it is bearable and can be dealt with, but there’s a point beyond which it gets very dangerous. While companies may be able to afford an extra few dollars for office material getting stolen, humanity cannot continued afford abuse of the earth’s resources. There are no second chances in this game, at least not without involving a downgrade to a post-apocalyptic, desolate lifestyle. We need to get serious and count our resources before
source: Noviproductions
setting out to exploit them. Failure to do so makes them prone to abuse, and we end up right where we are now, doing irrational things, wondering where our resources are going, why the oceans are dying out, why cancer is on the rise, how plastic and toxic metals find their way into our food chain, why we are cutting down the earths forests without considering they make our air breathable. We end up watching this great irrational tragedy unfold, helplessly playing our part in some form or other, wondering who among us will stand up and say, Enough with this madness. Settle down.
If we are to stay civilized and not descend to chaos, we need to act the part. First and foremost we must plan ahead, figure out how potent this patch of earth is before we start grazing on it. It’s a pain in the backside, planning is, but it always wins the day over amateur enthusiasm or reckless abandon.
This is the first article in a series that aims to investigate the tragedy of the commons in greater depth, setting the foundation for an initiative on how to identify it, minimize it and eliminate it where possible. The buck stops here, with every individual. Be accountable for our behavior, to each our own, and together we begin a process that sets the foundation for overall change.
Let us begin by sharing this article with as many people as you know, environmentally inclined or not, it doesn’t matter. The tragedy of the commons affects us all, in more ways than one, and the best way to tackle it is to stop getting lost in the common crowd. We all make a difference, each one adding our bit to the process. The point is to make a statement and keep making one until it begins to resonate. Failing to do so will lead to a tragedy not even the Greeks could have scripted. Then again, they did, and their state is failing, all because it was plundered like a common patch of grass with no regard for tomorrow. Let their shortcomings be a warning to us all.
Time for the masses to recognize and speak up about the moral hazards, and the destruction, of allowing profit-seeking companies indulge in externalized costs -- such as using/polluting waterways, oceans, groundwater, soil, air...and thus hurting plants, nonhuman animals, and humans.
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