The Tragedy of the Commons describes the tendency for individuals to overuse and deplete shared public resources because they do not personally bear the negative consequences of their actions. This concept helps explain environmental degradation and resource depletion.
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hi everybody its mr. Snead's and
certainly will be starting off unit 5 by
covering topic 5.1 which is the tragedy
of the Commons so the tragedy of the
Commons is this idea that people tend to
overuse public or shared resources since
they don't experience the negative
consequences of doing so it can help us
understand issues as complex as air and
water pollution and as simple as why
public restrooms are so dirty
our objective for the day is to be able
to explain the concept of the tragedy of
the Commons and the essential knowledge
that we need in order to do this is to
know that the tragedy of the Commons
suggests individuals tend to use public
or shared resources in their own
self-interest which will deplete these
resources our suggested science skill
for the day is concept explanation so
first we'll define what the tragedy of
the Commons is the phrase was originally
coined by a British economist William
Foster Lloyd who used the over grazing
of animals unshared public lands as an
example of when individuals act in their
own self-interest rather than the
interest of the greater good but it
didn't become part of mainstream
environmentalist theory until 1968 when
an American ecologist named Garret
Hardin wrote an essay with the title the
tragedy of the Commons which drew
heavily from Lloyds work the basic idea
is that individuals tend to overuse
shared resources in their own
self-interest which will deplete these
resources now there's two really
important key points here they have to
be public resources not private ones
because then the users would experience
the negative consequences of their
overuse and the second one is that the
resource has to be depleted by this
overuse so it can't be something that's
not affected by overuse so we'll take a
look at some examples now the classic
example is over grazing and that's
having too many animals on one patch of
land as we can see sheep here in the
picture then there's overfishing which
is another classic examples of people
catching so many fish that we deplete
fish populations and leave none for
future generations water and air
pollution of all sorts are another great
example and then finally we have overuse
of groundwater which we'll look at a
little more in depth with a specific
Michigan example so why does the tragedy
of the Commons happen while the
reason is that when no one owns a
resource no one directly suffers the
negative consequences of depleting or
overusing that resource
the same idea that applies to public
restrooms applies to public resources so
if you've ever been in a public restroom
they're oftentimes quite dirty there's a
lot of paper towel left on the floor or
water splashed all over the mirror and
this is because no one directly feels
responsible for keeping it clean so the
people that use it don't have to suffer
the consequences of it becoming dirty
because they get to just leave and go
home on the other hand if they owned
that restroom if it was in their own
house they probably treat it a lot
differently they'd probably keep it a
lot cleaner for a Michigan example we
have a private company Nestle who
recently submitted a request to increase
the rate of pumping water from awhile in
Everett Michigan from 250 to 400 gallons
a minute this is because the groundwater
that they're pumping is a public shared
resource so they're not going to suffer
the negative consequences of overusing
it if they overuse this ground water
source and deplete it and it's not
available for future use they can just
move and find another site to pump
groundwater they aren't stuck living
there what the consequences of having
depleted that groundwater another cause
for the tragedy of the Commons is this
idea that if I don't overuse the
resource someone else will so we have a
great comic here to illustrate that we
have the fisherman on the Left saying
well there it is the last fish in the
ocean and he seems kind of concerned
about this and the guy on the right has
got a big grin he says woohoo at least
we beat the Russians and the Spaniards
to it so that's just kind of illustrates
this idea that people assume if I don't
overuse the resource someone else will
so why not profit from what's left of it
and then finally there are just
oftentimes no real direct consequences
for overusing or depleting a resource we
see this especially in developing
nations like Peru here where there's
hazardous medical waste just being
dumped into a river
so without laws that will threaten to
sue or impose harsh fines on people that
do this there's less of an incentive to
care for those publicly shared resources
so what's the problem with the tragedy
of the Commons why is this really such a
big issue well the first issue is that
things like overfishing can lead to
total depletion of resources so we have
this case of the Atlantic cod here which
was over fished severely in the late 60s
and the 70s and then we see this huge
population crash and so fishermen are
going to lose their income and in parts
of the world where people really rely on
fish for food there may even be
starvation another great example is air
pollution so air pollution comes from
driving our cars it comes especially
from coal-fired power plants to produce
the electricity we demand and so this is
going to put things like sulfur dioxide
into the air and it's gonna be really
harmful to people's lungs it damages
their respiratory tract it can make
asthma and bronchitis worse and over the
long-run there's going to be increased
healthcare costs for these people who
are suffering from these respiratory
issues another great example is
pesticide use so farmers put pesticides
on their crops to increase their yield
increase the amount of food they produce
and their profits but these pesticides
are washed away in the rain they can get
into local rivers and streams or even
trickle down to the groundwater and that
can contaminate groundwater sources that
people use for drinking it can damage
fish populations in the streams that
people rely on for recreation and for
income and so all of these are what we
call negative externalities so negative
externality is a cost that comes with a
human activity but that isn't
experienced by the person that's doing
that activity so the coal-fired power
plants that are producing a lot of
sulfur dioxide they don't experience the
negative healthcare costs of the people
who have worsened asthma or bronchitis
or the farmer who sprays pesticides on
their crops they don't experience the
negative recreational dollars that are
lost from downstream communities whose
fish fish populations suffer and so we
can see that these negative
externalities are basically passed on to
a different person somewhere else and
that's what we call an externality
because the cost is externalized think
of it kind of as like an unintended
consequence so how do we solve the
tragedy of the Commons well the first
concept is to make meats publicly shared
resources private either by selling them
to individuals or by having government
ownership so that someone is response
for maintaining them and they don't fall
victim to the tragedy of the Commons
another way to do this is to impose fees
or taxes for using the resources so
examples include having a permit system
for grazing or forcing logging companies
to pay a permit to come and log in area
and that idea is that the more that
people have to pay per unit of a
resource they use the more likely they
are to consider using less and to use it
more sustainably and then the last
option is more punitive option this is
the idea of imposing taxes fines or even
criminal charges for groups or
individuals that are polluting shared
resources especially air soil and water
so let's look at some examples we have
the Clean Air Act the Clean Water Act
and the Safe Drinking Water Act and
these are all acts that give the EPA the
power to impose fines penalties on
companies or individuals that are
polluting these shared resources in
terms of grazing we have something
called the Bureau of Land Management and
they oversee tons of public rangelands
in the western United States they
collect grazing fees from ranchers and
they also conduct studies on the quality
of the land and help restore it so that
it doesn't fall victim to the tragedy of
the Commons our suggested science
practice for topic 5.1 today is
explaining environmental concepts or
processes so I want you to try to answer
this practice of RQ says the oceans of
the world are often referred to as a
Commons so identify one other Commons
explain how human activity affects that
Commons and then propose a solution for
managing that Commons alright everybody
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