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What is garrett hardin's concept of "the tragedy of the commons" one page summary
Reasons for environmental pollution
Reflection about the tragedy of the commons
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Garret Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” is an article that identifies the nation’s current problems and predicaments that can’t be resolved through the use of technical solutions. Hardin’s work heavily focuses on overpopulation, a prominent and unceasing issue that significantly distorts and affects the stability of the Earth and the abundance of the planet’s resources. In his article, he mentioned some reasonable and important solutions to overpopulation, but he also explained its downside and how the said solutions may not be ideal and practical. “Tragedy of the Commons” revealed that the human population will continue to flourish and how it will be greatly detrimental to our society unless individuals get the education that they need and …show more content…
In my opinion, Hardin’s story intends to depict humans as creatures who prefer to acquire temporary rewards yet suffer in the long run than encounter a few nuisances and in the end gain more. Through Hardin’s work, people’s self-centeredness and their perspective of being the most supreme being in the universe or anthropocentrism were solidified and their role in destroying the planet was put into perspective. Based on the article, we can infer that humans have an innate behavior of acquiring more items than they need, simply put, individuals tend to be greedy. A person has a tendency to hoard supplies and goods without considering the possible consequences of her action. Moreover, the short narrative revealed that humans are more focused on obtaining their own desires than of considering the well-being and the needs of the society. In some individuals, their greediness influences the number of children they desire, thus they over breed to “secure its own aggrandizement.” As a result of this selfishness and greediness, there is now an imbalance in our resources, community, and …show more content…
As time passes, our population continues to increase and multiply; yet, on the other hand, our planet’s resources continue to decrease and deplete. As our population flourishes, human beings also increase their demands and clamor for the Earth’s natural products, yet are unable to sacrifice their surplus of the said resources. Garret Hardin’s work highlighted the reality that humans fail to remember that the Earth is finite and its resources are limited. Hardin’s article revealed that people are unable to fathom that we indeed have a moral obligation to our community and our natural habitat — that we are not our planet’s conquerors but its protectors. We fail to acknowledge and accept that we only have one Earth and that we must protect and treasure it at all costs. Despite all our attempts at annihilating the planet, the Earth will still be unrelenting — it will still continue to be present and powerful. Human beings must recognize that we need this planet more than it needs us and if we persist on being egocentric and covetous, in the end it is us who will
The worldwide population is approaching 7 billion and is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050 (Baird). This projected population number is down from a once predicted 16 billion (Baird) and while some are not concerned, others are worried about any increase in population. Population growth is discussed in the articles “Too Many People?” by Vanessa Baird; “Population Control: How Can There Possibly Be Too Many of Us?” by Frank Furedi; and “The Population Bomb Revisited,” by Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich. Baird and Furedi concur that a concern for population growth has been around since mathematician Thomas Malthus, in 1798, warned that overpopulation could lead to “the collapse of society” (Furedi). Furedi claims that too much human life is being used as an excuse, by population control supporters, for the world’s current and future problems. Baird tries to discover if “the current panic over population growth is reasonable.” For Ehrlich and Ehrlich the concern over population growth is very real, and they reinforce and support their book “calling attention to the demographic element in the human predicament” (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 63). While taking different approaches to their articles, the authors offer their perspectives on population growth, population control and the environmental impacts of a growing population.
One main issue is that the world is biophysically finite, which means that we all have a limit, the more people we have, the less each person should possess. Also, we can’t just increase the number of people uncontrollably and be able to satisfy everyone. The second key issue is, over population. Hardin assumes that every person is selfish, and everyone is looking to benefit themselves. Actions they would be doing are like, having more of what they need which leads them over using the only resources we have left. The third key issue, in Hardin’s point of view, is that we should just forget about the Commons system; meaning there should be a statement or right or law to restrict people from overbreeding. Being able to freely over breed will bring us other problems like losing some of our other freedoms. There should be laws to determine the size of families. Finally, the fourth key issue is to gain peoples approval for the new system that is going to pressure them a lot. Basically, we should make all people understand the consequences of letting them freely breed, and what overpopulation will do to us in the very near future.
In his 1968 essay, The Tragedy of the Commons, Garret Hardin addresses the problem with overpopulation and it’s eventual toll on our planet’s resources in a scenario where the individual interest clashes with the collective interest. Self-interest only serves the good of an individual while collective interest is meant to serve the good of everyone in the society. In his essay, he describes overpopulation as a tragedy of the commons because as population grows exponentially, resources only grow statically, and this will result in the depletion of our resources. When a resourc...
Garrett Hardin, an American ecologist, warned of the dangers of overpopulation. In Hardin’s best-known works, “The tragedy of the Commons” and “Lifeboat Ethics,” he talks about the importance of sustainability and requiring everyone to take action. Hardin stresses the importance of evaluating our environment to maintain a high quality of life without sacrificing future generations ability to do the same. Sustainability is having a healthy balance between economic, social, and ecological issues. In my essay, I will expand on these issues and how they are addressed in Hardin’s writings.
According to Hardin, freedom is the cause of tragedy of commons. There is no technical solution to solve it. The only solution is to alter human’s principles. The article by Hardin focused on the population growth. Overpopulation is an example of tragedy of commons. Because the world is finite, one is unable to maximize goods and population at the same time. Hardin then propose that the only solution is to limit breeding. “Common system from breeding must be abandoned”
In his essay, Hardin considered the right to breed as a commons and confronted the resulting problem of global overpopulation. Hardin believed in the inevitable exploitation of any commons, and therein lies the tragedy of commons: a commodity which is universally free and accessible will inexorably result in overutilation precisely because of those characteristics. He held that the misuse of the commons came as the conflict between individual interests and collective interests.... ... middle of paper ... ...
At the U.S. Science Convention of 2011, the dire prediction was made that by 2050, we will have an “unrecognizable” planet by virtue of a huge population competing for a deficient number of resources. It is envisioned that the global population will climb to nine billion by 2050. Due to the increasing population, “we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000,” said Jason Clay at the yearly meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The only effective solution is to “minimize population growth…through more effective family planning”. We are now witnessing the truth that lied behind the theory of the economist, Thomas Malthus, who foreshadowed the increase of population with minimal resources to support it.
The relationship between humanity and nature has undergone a power shift since the time of cave paintings in Lascaux. The Tragedy of the Commons describes a balance between pre-industrial humans and nature, a relationship of morbid regulation. Human kind was prosperous, however limited in growth by various methods of population culling, which prevented humans from dominating the resources presented by nature. The issue occurs when humans reach a point of social cohesiveness that they are able to resist nature’s methods of population regulation and grow uninhibited. At this moment I believe humans departed from our relationship with nature, we circumvented the terms of natures presence in the relationship and embodied a supreme position of exploitation
Throughout this reading by Garrett Hardin, he presented in a very scientific fashion, a theory of the population problem. He argued against the freedom to “breed”, with the worry that the worlds human population is growing exponentially even as our resources just become more limited. His conclusion when confronting this problem was that population needs to be controlled in some way. With the application of his theory he states that breeding rights is a common good, but the people that abuse that right are the ones pushing us closer to extinction. He points out the forces that he believes must change in order to stop the continued growth of population and after doing so he suggests solutions. The “over breeders” will eventually force the gene pool of people that acknowledge their
Garrett Hardin developed the concept of the Tragedy of the Commons. The basic concept is a giant pasture that is for everyone to have a piece of land and for the herdsman to have as many cattle a possible to sustain the land. This land should be able to maintain itself for quite a long time because of cattle dying as well as the population staying relatively stable. But at some point the population will begin growing and the herdsman will want to maximize their profits by having more cattle, which in return the land cannot sustain. The herdsman receives all the profit from adding one more animal to the pasture so the herdsman will eventually begin adding more cattle, but the overgrazing caused by that added animal will destroy the land making it uninhabitable for everyone. Thus you have the tragedy of the commons. For all the herdsman on the common, it is the only rational decision to make, adding another animal. This is the tragedy. Each man is compelled to add an infinite number of cattle to increase his profits, but in a world with limited resources it is impossible to continually grow. When resources are held "in common" with many people having access and ownership to it, then a rational person will increase their exploitation of it because the individual is receiving all the benefit, while everyone is sharing the costs.
‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ deals with the over growing population and suggests a solution in a unique prospect. Undeniably, science and technology is often suggested as a solution to the problem (by majority of the published journal). However, Hardin believes that there is no technical solution, and would only aggravate to the issue if the universe does not change its attitude/ assumption that there is an ‘actual’ technical solution. Hardin tackled the population problem in a harsh manner; defining the roots of the problem and to his idea of solution. Hardin examined the correlation between the population and resources, then analyzed the key factors that caused the population to swell.
‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ written by Garrett Hardin is an article that is highly pessimistic in its approach. It mainly talks about the problems of the “commons” because of overpopulation, keeping the Malthusian theory as the central argument. Malthus had concluded after observing the continuous growth in the population of the northern states of America that, if unchecked, the population had the tendency to double itself in every twenty-five year period. He proposed that the population would increase in a geometrical fashion (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 …) and on the other hand, the food supply could increase in an arithmetic progression (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…). For Malthus, the main reason for this was that since the supply of food is fixed, in accordance with the law
From the beginning of time, the earth has provided its inhabitants with everything needed to sustain life at its most basic level. For instance, the ratio of land to fresh water as well as Earth’s natural cycles provided enough resources for animals to survive. Unfortunately, as the human population grew, the previously abundant natural resources started to become limited. In fact, engineers have recently been tasked with discovering new methods of harnessing energy, harvesting food, and collecting fresh water because the population is quickly depleting traditional techniques. Not only is the sheer number of people on Earth using up all of its natural resources, but humans’ modern desires are furthering the destruction of Earth. In developed
The world’s population has been growing faster and faster, which projects potential problems with maintaining world food and water supply, and altering biodiversity worldwide. Fortunately, there are practical and manageable ways to keep the world’s human population in check to make sure that overpopulation is avoided. According to the population reference bureau the world population is reaching close to 7,200,000,000 people and increasing fast. The University of Washington estimated the world population to reach a massive 11 billion people by 2100; this was even increased from the U.N.’s prediction in 2011 of 10.1 billion. The current rate of population growth could have a crippling impact on the future welfare of the human and the natural world in this century. There are about 78 million more births than deaths each year; this is alarmingly fast, even with most women having 2 or fewer children. That’s equivalent to the entire population of Germany every year.
One of the problems facing our world is population. It began about ten thousand years ago when the humans settled and began farming. The farming provides more food for the people thus making the population grow. Now we are about 6 billion in population and in a few years we will be around 10 to 11 billion. Therefore, our population will almost double in size. This means that we will need more food to support us. A study in 1986 by Peter Vitonesk, a Stanford biologist, showed that the humans are already consuming about 38.8 of what is possible for us to eat. Thus, if the population keeps increasing, the percentage will increase also, making us closer and closer to the biophysical limits. By studying the earth's capacity, Dr. Cornell, another biologist, believes that we are already crowded for this would. He believes that our world can only support two million people. Not only this, but population can cause complicated problems to the countries with very high population. These countries will need more schools to educate its people, they will need more hospitals and public health to take care of their people, and they will need more water and more soil for farming to feed all the people. In order to solve the population growth problem, the people should be educated. Once the people are educated they will be aware of the problems they ca...