Today in my environmental economics class we finished up our 3 day lecture series on the tragedy of the commons, popularized by the British economist David Ricardo in his book, the Tragedy of the Commons (1821). The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory that says that if a resource is open access (i.e. anyone can use it to any extent they wish without cost directly to them) then eventually that resource will get abused and degraded to the point it can no longer be used. In order to not bore you with economic theory I'll leave that out here, but basically because there is no direct cost to the producer to use the land, and no ownership that would incentivize conservation of said resource it is used ever increasingly till it collapses and cannot be used anymore.
My professor, an ethnic German that moved to New Zealand, told us some examples of open access resources that have been either destroyed or severely damaged by this tragedy of the commons. Some were historical examples like the mass hunting of the American bison and the passenger pigeon to more recent examples like the collapse of the Grand Banks cod fishery or the tuna crisis happening now. Some involved local examples like a growing problem in Canterbury (the state to the north of Otago, where I am currently) called dirty dairying. This problem involves the effluent and pollution associated with cattle production is being dumped into local rivers causing water quality to decline quite significantly. Even global problems like global climate change are, at heart, tragedies of the commons.
When I was sitting in class letting this all sink in just how selfish we as a species are. We are able to mathematically quantify our own greed well enough to ground a landmark economic theory on it that can accurately predict and describe all of these different ecological disasters. It just makes me immensely sad that we as a species are so reliably out for our own benefit only, with no thought for the future or anyone else.
I read an article this morning in The Critic, which is a student run magazine here on campus. They had an article centering on the issue of deep sea drilling off the coast of Dunedin and whether or not the suspected oil fields should be tapped. One of the people that was for drilling said something that made me think. She said something along the lines of we need to drill to bring in money to the city because people need warm beds and shelters now, not environmental conservation for some distant future. She also said it is easy to preach for conservationism when you are well off enough to not be effected monetarily by these issues. That last bit was what really hit me, because I have never wanted for anything or really gone through any type of monetary suffering and here I am preaching that we should boycott these cheap fuels and ways of living to opt for greener, more expensive, energy sources for some far off benefit.
But then I thought: digging ourselves farther into this pit of fossil fuel dependence will only lead to harder changes down the road when we either use all cheap sources of oil/gas or climate change has become sufficiently evident for the majority of law making bodies to accept it and take measures to counteract it.
So here we can see a tragedy of the commons in action. We continue to be blinded by short term needs and wants that we cannot see the much larger and harder to deal with long term problems caused by these wanton uses of our resources. While I sympathize with the poor that would have benefited economically from drilling for oil I can't help but think about the possibilities of using the money for drilling and using it for researching and installing viable energy solutions. It's not like we don't have the knowledge, by 2023 Japan will have installed enough solar panels to equal the output of seven nuclear reactors. Also, within the past few months the newest, largest "solar farm" finished being built in California and will start producing energy soon. All of these new projects need people to build them, run them, and maintain them. All of these positions create long term, sustainable, green jobs. Why is that so bad? Why can't we fund that? We can improve our economy and our environment at the same time. Let's turn a tragedy of the commons into a conservation of the commons, even a triumph of humanity over our own selfishness. Even from a pragmatic view point we know we will have to change eventually, it is inevitable. Let's make the change now, voluntarily, before the irreplaceable things that make this world vibrant and alive disappear forever.
Just because I think it's cool, here is the new solar farm. it's called IVANPAH and is located in the Mojave Desert, which has one of the highest rates of potential solar energy in North America. It will have an output of 377 megawatts of electricity and it will prevent an estimated 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year. It works by using a field of mirrors to focus sunlight onto the pillars in the center of the array where water is heated to create steam to drive turbines. Clean, renewable, and a solar spill is just called a sunny day!
More info: http://www.brightsourceenergy.com/ivanpah-solar-project#.Uxbl3l5RF-w
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