Tragedy of the Commons

For one of my university classes, I had to read an article about the Tragedy of the Commons which happens if enough people take more than there share of a common resource, an easily sustainable resource will get depleted. This works for things like air pollution in cities (how can 1 gas guzzling SUV really cause that much pollution?) and littering in parks.

Although the article was originally discussing how people need limit the growth of population all around the world, much like China is doing, so we don't exceed the Earth's carrying capacity even more, the same idea how 1 more child or 1 more car cannot affect anything applies. People have always tried to come up with technological solutions to fix our problems when sometime the solution that has the fastest acting and largest impact is to change behaviour. Although making cars more fuel efficient has greatly helped with air pollutions, if people were to stop driving and were to use bikes or mass transit the impact would be significantly greater.

While a couple countries that have dictatorships use oppressive force to change people's habits, for many other countries the market price of a good is a large influence. While a few may drive smaller cars to help cut back on air pollution, the largest influence on reducing driving is the increase in gas prices. What used to be a small cost to get around places and was largely unnoticed except for a few times in recent years such as the oil embargo, the rising cost of fuels has had a much larger impact on getting people to combine trips for shopping as well as carpooling and just avoid driving (myself included) because it would cost more than to be wasteful.

One person can make a large big difference. Many people do not vote in elections since they think that 1 person cannot change anything. Sometime just a few votes can make the difference of who is in charge.

While 1 individual may have little power, but a large group of individuals that believe in the same thing can change the world.