Garrett Hardin Analysis

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.

A. In a world the values “keeping up with the Jones”, it is understandable why a theory such as the Tragedy of the Commons would be introduced. Bell uses Garrett Hardin’s ideas to paint a picture when the Tragedy of the Commons occurs. When a common area for group of people is in use, it is likely to exploited because of the selfish mindset of “What can I get out of this?” rather than “What can we get out of this?” This causes the common place, be it a pasture, road, air, or ocean to become unusable as a result of being overused by the very people it was meant to serve. It turns common places into a

This paper can be an excellent source for anyone researching into how to fight overpopulation. Hardin provides several other viewpoints that show he did not selectively choose evidence or distort it. Hardin proceeds from point to point logically which allowed the reader to comprehend the main idea effortlessly. The author glided to how the people of poor

Dr. Forsyth implements plenty of evidence as well as proven statistics to back up his outlook on these issues. The growth of human population is happening at an exponential rate, implying that in a short period of time population growth will double. “We find it difficult to comprehend exponential growth, but it may prove to be our fatal blind spot” [3]. When analysing the world’s population over a long period of time, it took roughly 19,000 years for the world’s population to go from 5million people to 500 million people in 1500 A.D. [4] With an estimated population of 7.5 billion people [5], for a period less than 1000 years, population increased more than 1500 times its size than it was in the 1500’s. In addition, on a more minute scale of time, in 1950 the world’s population was roughly 2.5 billion people [6] in merely 50 years the world’s population has tripled. With these statics, it is evident that the world’s population is increasing at an incomprehensive rate. With populations at their peak, overconsumption is another problem this world faces, as Dr. Forsyth affirms “humans consume far more than their fair share of the Earth’s natural productivity.”[7] Due to this over consumption of resources, there is a vast demand for cheap food which results in the clear cutting of large forest to generate room for new plantations of food. When doing so, humans destroy habitats that

In Garrett Hardin’s essay “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor,” Hardin asks readers if every person on earth has an equal share of resources and then argues why he takes the position against helping the poor. Hardin uses the metaphor of a lifeboat that is almost filled to capacity, floating in an ocean where the “poor of the world” are overboard. This metaphor appeals greatly to one of humanities greatest instincts, survival. The main focus of Hardin’s essay and metaphor is to strip all morals, take the fault from the rich nations and place the responsibilities and blame on the poor. There are a few rebels who seem to think that the blame and responsibilities are incorrectly placed. One of these rebels is Alan Durning who presents his argument in his essay “Asking How Much is Enough.” Durning argues that overpopulation does not threaten the world’s resources. He believes the real culprit is overconsumption by the rich. Joseph K. Skinner is another rebel who argues against Hardin in his essay “Big Mac and the Tropical Forests.” Skinner argues that wealthy nations, including the United States, are responsible for the world’s resource problem because they use poor nations as main producers of goods they expend. The arguments made in the essays’ by Durning and Skinner make readers alert of Hardin’s rhetorical strategies and how he uses his

“Tragedy of the Commons” means is a situation within a shared-resource structure where people act by themself without thinking about the common good used by others by depleting that resource through their action because of their own selfish gain.

No matter how many people do claim overpopulation is not a relevant issue, it very much is because of the simple fact that starvation and pollution are very real and existing issues that are ultimately offset by overpopulation. In an article titled “Overpopulation Is Not the Problem,” author Erle C. Ellis uses the analogy “Like bacteria in a petri dish, our exploding numbers are reaching the limits of a finite planet, with dire consequences,” to argue that overpopulation is not a problem by stating the opposing claim. “We are nothing like bacteria in a petri dish,” Mr. Ellis solemnly asserts, “...these claims demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of the ecology of human systems. The conditions that sustain humanity are not natural and never have been. Since prehistory, human populations have used technologies and engineered ecosystems to sustain

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

The majority of the general population will admit to defining success as fulfilling their desire to surpass their current position in society. We pride ourselves on achieving success by creating a comfortable place in the world where we can transcend society’s boundaries of limitation. Generally speaking each human being regards success differently. For some, success will be securing endless finances or becoming part of the upper class. Assuming that as individual human beings we define success differently, our desire to surpass our current standing in society is irrelevant, however, the path we take to fulfill our desire for success is essential to understanding Garrett Hardin’s understanding of our general interpretation of protecting the

In The Tragedy of the Commons, Garrett Hardin proposes that the problem of population exists in a pool of problems without a technical solution. In particular, he notes that the infinitude of space fails to be a solution to the problem of over population. He strikes down opposition to this argument swiftly, citing one of his other publications as a defense. I take issue with this negative claim and explore ways in which the over-population problem as it pertains to modern humanity could be solved in the long term via inter-planetary colonization. In particular, I cite SpaceX's work toward colonizing Mars as the basis for the inductive argument that such colonization will allow humanity access to an effectively infinite amount of land and resources.

The following film is inspired by the legends and the facts surrounding the life of Jonathan Hardin, an early pioneer of the Arkansas Territory, who settled near the crossroads of the Springfield-DesArc and Clinton-Little Rock roads where he built a two-story oak hewn log house which served as an Inn and Tavern during an age of outlaws and cattle rustlers but legend also suggests that prior to his death on December 16, 1869, at the age of 69, Hardin not only buried the family gold but may have also buried a few weary travelers who sought a place to lay their head for the night.

I’ve thought for quite some time about the matter at hand “should we help the poor”. A big question to ask, but that just one man’s opinion. Ask Garrett Hardin, or Johnathan Swift and it would be but a small act for them to tell you their opinion. “I on the other hand found the task a little more… inconvenient to answer.

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

Hartmann states, " Affluence has more to do with the depletion of natural resources than does population size" because similarly to the issue of food distribution, too few people consume too much of the world 's energy, metals and wood (Hartmann 1995: 23). For this reason, " on a global level, it simply does not make sense to blame environmental degradation on population growth" (Hartmann 1995: 23); consumption patterns illustrate that one group of people are obviously creating the damage, and that group is not the "overpopulated" nations of the Global South. Hartmann explains that the goal of achieving a Western lifestyle, which necessitates environmental exploitation, cannot become a reality for a global population of this size but that the globe does have the ability to support every life on the plant. She is effectively calling into question the notion that a Western existence is inherently desirable and better, forcing people to examine if they cry "overpopulation" as a way of protecting their extravagant and environmentally harmful existences. This connects to the final overpopulation myth, analyzed here, which paints the developing world 's inability to reach Western levels of economic growth on their growing population size.