Environmental Issues Depicted in Hardin's "The Tragedy of the Commons"

Every item consumed is derived from some sort of natural resource, whether it’s mined, grown or hunted. As the major consumers continue to live a “comfortable” lifestyle, the world’s ecosystem are beginning to be degraded. This is evident in the depletion of forests around the world. Every year, the loss of forests around the world equates to the size of Panama. (Douglas) Without forests, life on earth is simply impossible, we won’t have any

Throughout history there have been many examples of tragedy of the commons. Tragedy of the commons is when people in a certain area over exploit a common resource which leads toa higher problem. Tragedy of the commons normally happens when people get greedy and get more than they really need. For example, if one farmer is public grazing area were to add a cow over the limit the field can sustain it won’t do much damage but if the other farmers also add another cow to the field it could end up harming it to the point where it is no longer usable.This comes to show that if even a single person becomes greedy it could ruin so many things for other people. Ideas will be pulled out from Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” to be used in this essay.

Garrett Hardin published in Psychology Today in September 1974. This passage is an excerpt from his popular paper “The Tragedy of the Commons” as a warning that overpopulation was dangerous due to how limited Earth’s resources are. This theory is reflected in Hardin’s thesis that the rich should do nothing to help the people of poor nations and turn away those trying to come in. Hardin used the imagery of a lifeboat almost filled in a sea full of drowning people to pose and answer a single question, “what should the lifeboat passengers do?” (290). Hardin's answer was to defend the boat against all trying to board. If anyone felt guilty about this course of action they should feel free to swap places with a drowning man and give them their

      Logos is the logic, internal consistency, and clarity of the argument and it is split into claims, reasons, grounds, warrants, backing, and qualifiers. Hardin begins his essay by establishing his main claim, which is the idea that he believes is the most believable, that the world’s resources cannot be distributed equally, and any attempts to equally distribute current resources will ruin them. He does this by using the metaphor of the earth and its resources as a lifeboat. Only so many people may fit on this lifeboat, just as so many people may have access to the world’s very limited resources, and trying to fit too many people on this lifeboat will sink it. This phenomenon he calls “The Tragedy of the Commons”. He supports this claim with reasons and grounds; reasons being claims which support his initial claim, and grounds being supporting evidence that leads the audience to support the reasons. His warrant, or understood belief, is that spoiling resources and leading the world to ruin is not optimal,

In reading Garrett Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons,” and through my participation in the Kivulini Simulation lab completed in class, my knowledge and understanding of the psychological factors that contribute to the logic behind the decisions made by humans that negatively impact the planet we inhabit have significantly expanded. Many of these decisions are made out of ignorance, while others are made despite knowledge of the harm that results from them. There are some ways that I can apply this knowledge to my life in order to contribute to the effort to preserve this planet in the hopes of allowing it to sustain future generations.

Hardin states that throughout most of history there's been no need for concern about population control. Nature would come along with epidemic diseases and take care of the matter for us. Disease

   In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck uses both obvious references and subtle contrasts to emphasize the main theme of the novel: the sanctity of man's relationship to the natural world and to each other.

The author details much debate between the Department of Marine Resources and the fishermen to provide evidence that Garret Hardin was incorrect in several assumptions made in The Tragedy of the Commons. In this case study he attempts to disprove that users of open access resources have no vested interest in resource conservation and are unable to create regulatory controls themselves. Additionally, Acheson elucidates that resources can be sustainably and efficiently managed by communal or joint ownership in addition to private ownership as suggested by

As such, the lack of determination to preserve natural resources has enormously affected the environment, precisely animals and other life sources; for instance, minerals, forest, and fertile land that frequently occurs more often than not for economic gains. This is a situation that has been forgotten and ignored by public and elected officials due to profit and their reelection campaign funds. Because of corporate greediness, this issue has effected the environment and of course they are more focus on short term profit instead of the damaged that are being done and the long term impact on the environment. The wilderness is under assault and is being diminished due to lack of governmental oversight. Another example in “The Call of the Wild” poem by Gary Snyder, the author emphasizes how humankind

In the article “ Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor”, Garrett Hardin (1974) argues that wealthy people should not be responsible for the poor and that the consequences of feeding the poor are detrimental to the environment and to the society as a whole. Hardin was a well known philosopher and ecologist. He earned his bachelor's degree in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1936 and also earned his doctorate degree in microbiology from Stanford University in 1941 (Garrett Hardin, n.d.). The main issue that he tackled was human overpopulation and one of the books that he wrote that analyzed this issue was called ‘How Global Population Growth Threatens Widespread Social Disorder’(1992). Because the author has a sufficient

Technical solutions, which Hardin claims do not solve tragedy of commons by themselves, currently exist and are ever improving to mitigate environmental issues surrounding the depletion of commercial salmon stocks. For example, new methods of allowing salmon to bypass dams are being developed. Fish ladders and similar structure have been problematic in the past, sometimes killing more fish than are allowed to pass (Waldman, 2013). Some methods try to more closely mimic a natural river, while others involve modifications to existing dams to influence the movement of fish (Schilt, 2007, pp. 307-315). However, the most beneficial course of action would be to remove the dam entirely (Schilt, 2007, pp. 316-317). This, however, falls into the trap the Hardin describes with the self-defeating appeal to the conscience. Not using the river for hydropower would be foolish since it is a source of power that is readily available, while continuing to use river only aggravates the problem. The issues with habitat loss can also be partially solved through technical solutions. Deforestation of surrounding areas can be reduced through turning to other sources of lumber. Run-off and other sources of contamination can be treated

The classic essay Tragedy of the Commons describes the dilemma society faces when the interests of a group conflicts with the interests of individuals (Hardin, 1968). The example presented is that of a group of cattle ranchers commingling their cattle in a common pasture. At full capacity, each cattle owner still has an incentive to include additional cattle, since the slight decrease in overall yield per animal is offset by the additional animal. Unfortunately, this overgrazing inevitably leads to failure of the commons. The community goal of maximizing food production can only be achieved by placing controls on the interests of the individual cattle ranchers in favor of those of the community (Hardin, 1968). This paper is

Garrett Hardin was a controversial ecologist who believed that overpopulation was going to bring a downfall to a world of limited resources. Each nation was compared to a lifeboat with the rich being inside the boat and the poor in the water, drowning (Hardin, 561). He wrote the “Lifeboat Ethics” in 1974 when Ethiopia was having a starvation problem. Hardin’s opinion about the situation was that sending aid to Ethiopia was only making the problem worse and by feeding the people would aid overpopulation; the root to the problem. Hardin’s thesis developed from the notion that the rich should do nothing to help the poor. He believed that one

The tragedy of the commons and the problem of collective action are two key concepts in the world of political science. They act under the assumption that man is a rational being who will act in his own self interest. Humanity id broadly diverse meaning that each individual has their own ideas as to how society should run and how people should live.(heywood) This inevitably results in disagreement and this is where politics steps in. Aristotle described politics as the ‘master science’, ‘the activity through which human beings attempt to improve their lives and create the Good Society.’ Through the tragedy of the commons and the problem of collective action we can see how politics is essentially the ‘search for conflict resolution’

Few decades ago, clean water was “commons” (Hardin, 1968) to us. It was a natural resource shared by everyone and not owned by anyone. This “commons” was taken for granted to the extent that people exploit clean water without considering its finiteness. Resorts and factories dumped wastewater and ruined nearby rivers and oceans. People carelessly littered garbage and substituted the dirty water with diminishing clean water. They definitely benefited in terms of financial cost and comfort from their negligence. However, those individual interests ended up bringing severe water pollution, attacking our collective interest of public health and well-being. In this vein, water pollution is undeniably the “Tragedy of the Commons” (Hardin, 1968). Following these dire circumstances, water purification techniques and systems have been further developed and become widespread. Yet, the technical measurements have not quite fundamentally solved the problem. What is needed at this point is people’s will and practical action to improve the environment. However, merely hoping and encouraging people to do so are not enough. In order to have a steady support from people, we need a practical device for a “mutual coercion” (Hardin, 1968) to earn consent to coercion necessary to amend the situation. In this paper, I am going to address the technical and individual effort for water pollution and its limitation, and suggest a way to complement this limitation through a device on an institutional