The "tragedy of the Commons" in Today's World

The "Tragedy of the Commons" In Today's World

Our world has, in nature, provided us with a number of resources for a healthy living, but the main question remains as to how can we utilize those resources without depleting them? In 1968, an ecologist name Garret Hardin of the University of California introduced the concept of "Tragedy of the Commons" illustrating how commonly used resources are utilized. His concept demonstrates that an individual's only concern is his or her personal benefits, rather than considering the collective benefits of the society as a whole. Hardin depicted this idea by saying that if each herdsman had the opportunity to gain maximum profit from grazing more cattle then, as it is in their best interest, they would graze as many cattle as possible. However, they would do this without considering the negative impacts on the land which would, ironically, hurt themselves in the end. This example, demonstrates how quickly group of individuals use up a resource towards their benefits, until the resource is fully depleted. This paper will illustrate the tragedy of the commons in today's modern world with respect to water resources.

Water is a shared resource and so, is available to all individuals to use in their own manner, but with certain restrictions. In many countries, water is easily accessible for readily usage, while in others there have been shortages. Few years ago, the World Water Commission chairman, Ismail Serageldin, stated that "the wars of the twenty-first century will be fought over water". This is because water, similar to oil, is one of the most important natural resources in today's world, and since it is free, everybody wants a share of it. We can relate this to the medieval village herdsmen's viewpoint of "if I don't use it someone else will". A perspective such as that clearly shows the mindset of individuals, which is to unhesitantly use up a resource in any way possible with no thought to its effects. As a result, there is much evidence in today's world to exemplify the negative impact of unsustaining our water resource in a number of ways. One of them is that we have been disrupting the flow of water from one channel to another just to suit our needs, which is similar to Hardin's concepts of individual benefit.

An evident example of tragedy of the commons, related to water resource in our century, is the Colorado River. The Colorado River in the United States is a good example of how we are diverting and depleting the water from rivers, streams, lakes and ponds to farms, homes and cities, for our own necessities. First, the Colorado River was just used to supply water to the city of Denver, but now an even greater amount of water is removed to supply Las Vegas, causing a drastic reduction in the water level of the river. This reasonably proves the point that the tragedy of the commons is still present in today's world. For example, in the case of the Colorado River, the idea is that river water is common to everyone and the withdrawal of the water from the river can help different cities, but the future impact of using the common will be shared by everyone. In addition, I further believe that the United States will continue to divert water from the Colorado River to cities of Denver and Las Vegas until it comes to the point where the demands of the cities will offset the supply of the river's water. This is ought to happen in the nearer future as statistics by the United States Department of Interior Bureau of Reclamation on the Colorado River has shown that the demand of water by cities is increasing each year. And as a result, we will be witnessing an interception between the supply and demand of water usage in the river within the next few years. To further illustrate the previous statement, Figure 1 shows the Colorado River supply and demand from the year 1923 to 2004. The depletion of water in the Colorado River directly relates to the concept of tragedy of the commons, because individuals are benefiting from the withdrawal of water to the point where it will become overused. And when the water is all used up, it will cause a tragedy of the water (common) in Colorado River and the impact will be shared by all.

Figure 1: Colorado River Supply