Given a world of finite resources, sustainability is a critical issue that directly affects our existence and longevity. David Feeny described two dire characteristics of common property – subtractability and exclusion (1990:3) – that make controlling communal resources a source of tension and conundrum. Individuals ultimately tend to act in their own self-interests, implicitly destroying and exploiting communal resources, which leave solving the challenges to the issue of sustainability better suited for the impartial and removed.
In 1968, Garrett Hardin published an iconic paper on the issues of human sustainability. He describes the tragedy of the commons with herdsman keeping their cattle on common grounds, where individual herdsmen could maximize his gain by adding additional cattle (1968:1244). He said that adding one animal would benefit that herdsman to a utility of +1, where the negative utility from overgrazing of -1 would be shared among all herdsmen. Feeny named this phenomenon subtractability, where one’s behavior could subtract from another’s welfare (1990:3). Subtractability shows us that an individual acting in their self-interest is inherently detrimental to all those that share the common resource. Communities are made of self-interested individuals that have free choice to defect. Individuals are free to choose to defect, and therefore an individual’s choice of self-interest is directly or adversely tied to that group’s sustainability, or using a resource “without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Feeny 1990:5). Moreover, in a place of complete free choice, the sustainability and survival of the group is dependant on the consciousness and goodwill of people with others. Cl...
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...ives, such as reelection (Hardin 1968:1245), gaining alliances, and support of private corporations. “Who will watch the watchers?” (Hardin 1968:1246). Individuals work to maximize themselves, and their own sustenance. Sustainability on the other hand, is an issue that does not have one singular actor working for its behalf. “Tragedy...resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of
things” (Hard 1968:1244). Perhaps sustainability inherently being a communal responsibility is what makes unsustainability “tragic.”
Works Cited
Durham, William H. 1991 Coevolution: genes, culture, and human diversity. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
Feeny, David, Fikret Berkes, Bonnie J. McCay, and James M. Acheson 1990 The tragedy of the commons: twenty-two years later. Human Ecology 18(1): 1-19.
Hardin, Garrett 1968 The tragedy of the commons. Science 162: 1234-1248.
As time passes, our population continues to increase and multiply; yet, on the other hand, our planet’s resources continue to decrease and deplete. As our population flourishes, human beings also increase their demands and clamor for the Earth’s natural products, yet are unable to sacrifice their surplus of the said resources. Garret Hardin’s work highlighted the reality that humans fail to remember that the Earth is finite and its resources are limited. Hardin’s article revealed that people are unable to fathom that we indeed have a moral obligation to our community and our natural habitat — that we are not our planet’s conquerors but its protectors. We fail to acknowledge and accept that we only have one Earth and that we must protect and treasure it at all costs. Despite all our attempts at annihilating the planet, the Earth will still be unrelenting — it will still continue to be present and powerful. Human beings must recognize that we need this planet more than it needs us and if we persist on being egocentric and covetous, in the end it is us who will
Garrett Hardin presents several ideals on whether the poor should be saved or not through his article of “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor”. Hardin was an ecologist who wrote several articles on overpopulation. Throughout the article Hardin talked about how the poor could be saved by the rich by using the different ethnics of life. Although he tells the possible ways to saving the poor, he fails to give his stance on how he would save them.
In Part I, Moral Problems, Greene relates Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” to compare individualistic and collectivistic interests. In the “Tragedy of the Commons”, a single group of herders shares a hypothetical common pasture. Hardin posits that, were everyone to act for his or her individual self-interests, the pasture would be eroded and nothing would be left (19). Collective interests should triumph over individual interests whenever possible (24).
Retrieved October 11, 2011. www.gerrymarten.com/human-ecology/tableofcontents.html Retrieved October 12, 2011. www.equip.org/ Retrieved October 11, 2011. www.environmentmagazine.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/Se. Retrieved October 14, 2011.
Rudel, K. Thomas, J. Timmons Roberts and JoAnn Carmin. 2011. “Political Economy of the Environment.” Annual Review of Sociology 37: 221-238.
Kristof, Nicholas D. “For Environmental Balance, Pick up a Rifle”. New York Times. Rpt. in Current Issues and Enduring Questions. Barnet, Sylvia and Hugo Bedau. Boston. Bedford/St.Martins. 2011. Print. 183-185.
Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
The Tragedy of the Commons “is a problem that occurs when individuals exploit a shared resource to the extent that demand overwhelms supply and the resource becomes unavailable to some or all” (Wigmore, 2013, August). He explains if by using an example of herdsman caring for their cattle in a common land owned by others. Everyone in the land have the same number of cattle they are allowed to have. If one herdsman was being self-centered things and had more cattle because he was thinking of his needs would then damage the community by “overloading it, erosion set in, weeds take over, and he loses the use of the pasture. He would just worry about his goals now and not the overall outcome which not only affected him, but the other herdsmen as well. (Hardin, 1974,
Ostrom (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press.
Garrett Hardin developed the concept of the Tragedy of the Commons. The basic concept is a giant pasture that is for everyone to have a piece of land and for the herdsman to have as many cattle a possible to sustain the land. This land should be able to maintain itself for quite a long time because of cattle dying as well as the population staying relatively stable. But at some point the population will begin growing and the herdsman will want to maximize their profits by having more cattle, which in return the land cannot sustain. The herdsman receives all the profit from adding one more animal to the pasture so the herdsman will eventually begin adding more cattle, but the overgrazing caused by that added animal will destroy the land making it uninhabitable for everyone. Thus you have the tragedy of the commons. For all the herdsman on the common, it is the only rational decision to make, adding another animal. This is the tragedy. Each man is compelled to add an infinite number of cattle to increase his profits, but in a world with limited resources it is impossible to continually grow. When resources are held "in common" with many people having access and ownership to it, then a rational person will increase their exploitation of it because the individual is receiving all the benefit, while everyone is sharing the costs.
Everyone’s interpretation of environmental justice varies from their degree of belief and understanding of this serious subject. Though politics play a large role in the globalization of the world, it is those politics that have the power to accept or reject people’s notion. Though the characters in Edward Abbey’s book go about making their statement in an unacceptable way, to them, it is thought to make a difference in the amount of expansion they hope will not be made in the western states. As starhawk states, “we must have respect within to gain it” (30). With the respect of our selves, neighbors and our natural settings, there leaves no room for anything other than improvement.
Tietenberg, Thomas. Environmental and Natural Resource Economics. Addison Wesley: New York, 2003. pp. 561. ISBN 0-201-77027-X, pp. 7-11.
Southwick, C. H. (1996). "Chapter 15: Human Populations." Global Ecology in Human Perspective. Oxford University Press, 159-182.
Political ecology also involves conflicts between people and institutions over resources, in both developed world and developing world contexts. The use of natural resources and the creation of a sustainable environment is a critical issue that must be observed from different perspectives. Does it permit sustainable resources? Is it a threat to local security? How is income distributed through societies, both gender and location wise? Who decides how these are to be classified? These are key problems in political ecology.
* Daily, Gretchen C., ed. Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997.