The Tragedy of the Commons

Tragedy of the Commons

Much of man's world is treated as a "commons" wherein individuals have the right to freely consume its resources and return their wastes. The "logic of the commons" ultimately produces its ruin as well as the demise of those who depend upon it for survival. The commons relationship between people and their environment was noted by Garrett Hardin in a 1968 paper published in the journal SCIENCE (162:1243-1248). This Web Page is dedicated to examining in more detail, the consequences of treating our ecosystem as a commons.

To learn more about the tragedy of the commons, please feel free to print a copy of the essays listed below.

The Commons; What it is, How it works and Why it continues
Unpopular Science; The Tragedy Denied
The Atmospheric Commons and Global Warming
The Atmospheric Commons and Human Population
The Commons Unshared; Biodiversity Loss
Politics, Economics and the Perpetuation of the Commons
Those Who Make the Rules in the Commons
Carbon Emissions and the Atmospheric Commons
The Future in the Commons

Last Updated: 1 December 1998

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Tragedy of the Commons

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