Tragedy Of The Commons: The Lorax And Easter Island

Tragedy of the commons has affected many communities over the generations. Tragedy of the commons is when a community exploits a common resource. Tragedy of the commons is usually exploited because of self interest and greed. Most people do not realize Tragedy of the commons until the exploited resource is overused and ruined. The Lorax and easter island will be compared using these three points that go with Tragedy of the commons that are finite resources showing that our resources are not infinite, depletion of resources such as energy showing how we lose our resources when we over exploit them, and population versus resources showing how as the population increase our resources decrease.In the article The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett

They are thinking that resources are infinite so they can keep on building heads.

In the Tragedy of the Commons article it is said that “Population, as Malthus said, naturally tends to grow... in a finite would this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease” (Hardin 1243). In the Lorax the population of the forest with theTruffula Trees, the population of people is very low so the exploitation of the trees is low. But when the once-ler brings all of his family to make money off the Truffula Trees so by him doing that they increase the population of the area overexploiting the common resource (Seus). Thesame

In easter island the population of Rapa Nui was too many which means that each family made a head for there religion depleting their resources affecting the population of the Rapa Nui (History.com Staff).In the Tragedy of the Commons article Hardin says “To live, any organism must have a source of energy” (Hardin 1243). In the lorax the pollution in the lakes made all the fish leave the area (Seus). With all the fish gone because of population what ever organism that would eat the fish for a source of energy would have to leave the area to find more food. In Easter island the Rapa Nui deplete their food resources by them exceeding the carrying capacity (History.com Staff). So as a way to get energy to survive they had to go to cannibalism as a resource for food. The Tragedy of the Commons is a less none topic that is played in everyone's life everyday. In the lorax you can see many example of this. The trees was exploited which in turn destroyed the land that was once beautiful. Easter island was also a great example. They destroyed their land for greed and religion. They also ate each other because they could not manage their land and food. In summary Tragedy of the Commons is a mental under thought that the people of the world do not