Summary: The Tragedy Of The Commons

The wetlands along the Louisiana coastline have long served as nature’s first

line of defense against rising seas and violent storms. However, over the past century

the federal government has endorsed the construction of dikes and levees for better

shipping access and flood control. While these measures have provided many

benefits for local industries and the United States economy, they have come at a fairly

high cost. As the coastline recedes and the wetlands are destroyed, the residents of

Louisiana lose an important buffer against powerful storm surges. This nightmare

scenario became reality with the events of Hurricane Katrina, which created fierce

surges that breached levees and resulted in the massive flooding of New Orleans, the

loss

of over 1,600 lives and $75 billion in damages (“Nameless Katrina”). Although
the Bush Administration has been criticized for its lack of preparation prior to the
storm and its slow response afterwards, many critics do not adequately acknowledge
the government’s failure to reverse much of the wetland loss experienced over the
past 100 years. By funding projects aimed at reversing coastal erosion, the U.S.
government could have tremendously reduced much of the flooding that caused so
much devastation and shattered countless lives.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, under the direction of the U.S. federal
government, has been erecting flood control measures along the Mississippi River
without accounting for any of the possible environmental consequences that could
occur. While straightening the river offers many economic benefits, the construction
of levees and dikes has left millions of people living in cities such as New Orleans
defenseless against intense storms like Hurricane Katrina. In his essay, “Lessons to
Learn from Nature’s Fury,” author Larry Schweiger writes that “wetlands and barrier
islands that would have protected the delta from storms [have shrunk] or vanished
[all together]” (Schweiger). As author Dominic Izzo in his essay “Reengineering the
Mississippi,” prophetically observed in 2004,
the coastal [regions of Louisiana] provide a buffer from hurricane storm
effects to approximately 2 million residents who live within the 19
coastal parishes. The loss of coastal area means that this population,
which includes the City of New Orleans, will experience the full force

of the hurricanes, including storm surges that top levee systems and
cause severe flooding as well as high winds. (Izzo)
This ignorance on the part of the U.S. federal government has had disastrous results
and led to the ruination of a shared natural resource as a result of human exploitation,
that Garrett Hardin, in his influential essay, calls a “tragedy of the commons.”
The effects of Hurricane Katrina have been etched into the minds of many
Americans, and the chances of another catastrophic event occurring in that region are
high. As global warming progresses, there is a high probability that the intensity of
hurricanes striking Louisiana will be greater because with the increasing water
temperatures of the Gulf of Mexico. As the coastline vanishes, more and more
residents will be left vulnerable to these killer hurricanes. Without the wetland
protection, they will also be defenseless against rising sea levels. Cities such as New
Orleans that sit below sea-level would be submerged if the sea rose 1.5 feet, as it is
predicted to do by the year 2050. To make matters worse, the amount of subsidence
occurring in the city of New Orleans is increasing, “as the weight of deposited
sediment gradually depresses the Earth’s crust” (Izzo). This subsidence can be
attributed to the “construction of Louisiana’s levee system, which has kept the
Mississippi River from flooding [the city but has caused] the city of New Orleans [to
sink] two to three feet in the past century” (“Sinking Feeling”).
The Mississippi River is the second longest in North America, flowing 2,300
miles from Lake Itasca in Minnesota, through the Midwest portion of the United
States, to the Gulf of Mexico. As the river meanders through the mid-continental
United States, it picks up tons of sediment, which eventually is deposited along the
Mississippi River Delta before the river empties into the Gulf of Mexico. The
accumulating sediment was an important contributing factor in building up the delta
region, which includes much of the Louisiana coastline. However, during the postCivil
War period there was an explosion of levees, wing-dams, dikes, jetties, and
other constructions along the full length of the river. As a result, the sediment that
used to regularly replenish the delta during the flood season is carried directly out
into the Gulf. Consequently, Louisiana is losing vast amounts of coastline in the
form of wetlands and barrier islands. As these coastal areas recede, Louisiana loses
an important buffer against strong storm surges and flooding.
Throughout human history, attempts have been made to control nature and
benefit from its resources. For example, dams are created along many rivers around

the world, which impede their natural flow in order to provide people with
electricity. However, ignorance and arrogance have blinded too many to recognizing
the negative consequences that result from their attempts to control the environment.
In his essay, author Larry Schweiger emphasizes the damaging results of installing
levees on the Mississippi. “Before streams in the delta were lined with levees,” he
writes, “the rivers brought in silt that continuously replenished the land. After levees
were constructed, however, the rivers stopped depositing new soil, which instead
flowed out into the Gulf of Mexico” (Schweiger). As a result of “human ingenuity,”
the average amount of sediment that the river carries and deposits into the delta has
significantly declined. The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area reported
that the sediment load has diminished from 1,576,000 tons per day in 1951 to 219,000
in 1988 (National Park Service). This is producing serious harm to the downstream
areas along the river, especially the delta region, which is receding at a high rate.
Human modifications of the Earth’s natural systems have resulted in what
author Garrett Hardin calls “the tragedy of the commons.” A “commons” represents
any resource that a group of people share, such as air, land, grass, fish, or in this case,
a river.

In his essay “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Hardin describes how a group

of people sharing a resource tend to utilize it to satisfy their own needs, but

ultimately this logic produces the demise of that resource and with it, the sustenance

it provides to all users (243). The straightening of the Mississippi River using

manmade levees, dikes, and other flood control measures, is a case in point. In a

recent Washington Post article, “Shrinking Louisiana Coastline Contributes to

Flooding,” Juliet Eilperin states that “[since the 1920s] lawmakers have pushed to

create a straighter Mississippi River that provides easier passage for ships and better

flood control” (Eilperin). As one can plainly see, this would definitely benefit the

shipping and farming industries; however, creating a straighter river has negative

consequences for millions of people residing along the Gulf Coast. Industries and

individuals are exploiting common resources, such as the Mississippi River, for their

own benefit without realizing downstream costs, both to themselves and to the larger

society.
The creation of flood control measures along the river is an example of how
humans tend to abuse shared resources without recognizing how their actions affect
the natural systems that maintain the Earth’s biosphere. Through this ignorance, we
systematically fail to take into account the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which