Reading Assignment
The tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin
In 1986, Garrett Hardin wrote an article about the population problem we have in our current world, and presented it to a big highly educated audience. He basically told them about the population problem we are currently going through in specific terms. First, he studied the relation of our current population to our current resources, and realized that our population should be brought under control because of the limited amount of resources we have. He then examined the actions that have caused population to increase uncontrollably.
There’s a lot of different aspects of this problem that still deserve careful attention. Hardin disagreed with the idea of wild hope and that technology
…show more content…
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 conclusion, I have to disagree with Garrett Hardin’s opinion on the world’s problem and its solution. Not a lot of people in this world are even willing to breed given their economic circumstance, health, culture, and even opinion on children and their responsibility. So you can’t assume that every person on this earth is going to produce, because whoever is overbreeding is counter balancing to who didn’t breed at
Swift uses statistical information to back up his proposal. He claims that there are about "200,000 couple whose wives are breeders; ...
Garrett Hardin argues a very harsh thesis. In his article Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor, he states nations must protect their resources and leave others to fend for themselves. While Hardin does come across strongly in his opinions, his concern about overpopulation is most definitely reasonable. Hardin supports his argument by using the example that if we do not protect ourselves there will be nothing left for the future generations.
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
Some people believe that immigration in the 1900’s was a good thing, however, they would be wrong. The United States government should have restricted the immigrants around that time. Some reasons are the population, the taking of new jobs and lowering wages, and diseases spreading quickly. These all factored importantly into why they should not have been allowed in.
Hardin states that throughout most of history there's been no need for concern about population control. Nature would come along with epidemic diseases and take care of the matter for us. Disease has been the primary population controller in the past. Because widespread disease and famine no longer exist, we have to find other means to stop population increases (Spencer 1992, pp.61-2).
In Part I, Moral Problems, Greene relates Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” to compare individualistic and collectivistic interests. In the “Tragedy of the Commons”, a single group of herders shares a hypothetical common pasture. Hardin posits that, were everyone to act for his or her individual self-interests, the pasture would be eroded and nothing would be left (19). Collective interests should triumph over individual interests whenever possible (24).
Finally, Stuart Rachels discusses the objections that do not agree with his opinion. Some think that it is a disastrous result that people do not have children because the whole world may become aging and human beings may not exist anymore and others mention that to bear children is a natural thing for human beings (Rachels, 2013). Aimed at different objections, Rachels has given the explanation. For example, he claims that his opinion is just to say that people should not have children, but do not forbid people to have children. In other words, to have children depends on the economic situation of
Population bottleneck is an evolutionary event in which a large part of a population or species is died or otherwise cannot reproduce, which increases genetic drift that can cause big losses of genetic variation for small populations. However, the amount of drift is inversely proportional to the population size, population bottleneck result a smaller population with reduced genetic diversity. Dropped genetic variation implies that the population will most likely be unable to adjust to new selection pressures, such as a shift in available resources (food, shelter, etc.) or climatic change, because the genetic variation that selection would act on may have already drifted out of the population. This genetic drift can affect the proportionate distribution of an allele and even cause to fixation or damage of alleles. Also, population bottleneck increases inbreeding and genetic homogeneity as there are some animals left in the gene pool which lead to unfavorable alleles can accumulate. Due to the smaller population size after a bottleneck event. population bottlenecks inform us that intraspecies diversity is similarly very vital
In, The Population Bomb by, Paul R Ehrlich, he explains the problem of population increase, and how there are people everywhere! The feeling of feeling over populated. He talks about how if there are more people then there is more food that needs to be produced then ate. He explains on the rich people becoming wealthier and the poor are going to be even poorer and there is going to be a starvation. Population is doubling every year and how our energy is turning into
After stating the other sides opinions he goes on to state how a hunter-gather society is completely better than agriculture. First of all, it is actually less time consuming than an agricultural based society. A study was conducted on a hunter-gatherer society that is still present, the Bushmen, and they actually have a great amount more leisure time than is believed (Diamond, 1987). The tribe is actually more nourished than those who participate in an agriculture society because they take in several different types of food, and live of the land. Secondly, in an agriculture society, ther...
These changes, from difficult manual labor to chemicals and genetically modified products, are in his opinion a necessary and modern action. When faced with the duty of feeding the world it would be a hard pressed farmer who could be individually responsible for every plant and small field under their care, I agree. Pulling away from nature is not ideal in the least, but with such a large population and so few farmers it feels like we do not really have much of a choice in the matter. These advancements, however, do allow for farmers to made less of an impact on the nature around them, which is a positive since we only have a single world around us to live in. Destroying it is not really a solution to any problem, no matter how large. “…We have to farm ‘industrially’ to feed the world, and by using those ‘industrial’ tools sensibly, we can accomplish that task… while protecting the land, water, and air around us” Hurst explains, pointing out that it is a responsibility that every farmer must undertake to be sensible with these newer and potentially harmful tools and to have some form of forethought of the consequences (The Omnivore’s Delusion,
Hardin argues how the world only has so many resources and opportunities for agriculture to be expanded. Therefore, with enough increase in population, these resources will become extinct. Thus, humans will run out of food and eventually starve to death. As Hardin declares, “a finite world can only support a finite population” (Hardin 98). Simon goes on to discuss how humans always seem to come up with the means to satisfy their needs.
After reading Alan Durning’s argument, you see that Durning exposes Hardin’s rhetoric by using three classification levels. Alan Durning uses the lower class, middle class, and upper class which shows that he does indeed have a middle ground argument. While Garrett Hardin leaves out the middle class in his argument, Durning tells us that, “Their vehicles are directly responsible for an estimated thirteen percent of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels worldwide (408).” The multiple vehicles owned by the middle class are a major part of the problem. In Alan Durning’s argument there are a total of five billion people in the three classification levels, “one billion live in unprecedented luxury”, “one billion live in destitution” (404), and there are three billion in the “massive middle class of the world” (408). In Garrett Hardin’s argument he blames everything on everyone except the Americans. On the other hand, Durning points out that the Americans are the cause of the destruction. While Garrett Hardin tries to make the rich feel like the poor are dangerous, Durning on the other hand states that, “The world’s 1 billion meat eaters, car drivers, and throwaway consumers are responsible for the lion’s share of the damage humans have caused to common global resources (406).” Alan Durning goes against Hardin, he says that the rich need to slow down and stop
Since the beginning of mankind, we have reached many great achievements. We have developed many technologies and theories to solve and explain many of our questions and to improve human life. Through our years of evolution, we have severely increased our own survivability. This has been a great achievement for us, but in the recent decade, overpopulation is becoming a great issue. In the recent years, the rapid increase in population growth has troubled many in the field of political sciences. Scientists like Ehrlich have calculated and expected our population to grow even faster if we do not act upon the increasing rate of population growth. The birth rate of our planet is increasing exponentially, meaning that the birth rate has surpassed the death rate and that the rate of growth will only increase if left alone. The politics of population is a debate that involves both the fields of sciences and moral and ethical considerations. Science may provide an insight of
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...