Tragedy of Commons

In the Comparative Politics and International Relations class, I am taking this semester, we have been discussing the tragedy of commons. We read an article titled, Climate Change and the Grim Logic of Collective Action explaining when communities share a common good, it is easy for the individuals to take what specifically they need in order for them to gain benefits. However, this becomes a problem when everyone else is doing the same thing, causing the tragedy to heighten leading to exploitation of the common good. This scenario is all too common and can easily happen to areas like, land, over harvesting, over fishing, over grazing, the list goes on. It’s hard for this not to happen because people rely on others involved to do something by putting in the effort to make more sustainable changes so that others can continue to exploit and take advantage of the commodity. However, when too many people do this, there still is going to be the same result of running out of the resource to only move and take resources elsewhere. This problem is hindering the environmental world and economic world because both want to benefit and prosper without the excessive damage and price tag. 

            This is a familiar phenomenon brought up in pretty much all the environmental classes I have taken so far, and I think it is important to address. However, there is no easy solution, because if there was, we would already be in a much better position environmentally and probably economically. From where humans stand and the pressure that is placed on communities and businesses to become more advanced and equipped with the resources needed, it is easy to see how this could be an easy solution. I think there will come to be a point in time where there may not be enough resources to exploit like this for much longer because resources aren’t getting the time they need to regrow and generate in order for them to continue to sustain communities. This problem isn’t healthy, and I think it is hard for me to grasp how people don’t understand that there is no sustainability in these types of actions and sooner than later they are going to be out of business because of it.