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

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