1. What is the Tragedy of the Commons?
2. How is pollution a tragedy of the commons?
3. How does he present the population problem? (in 1968)
4. Why is he critical of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
5. Does he think an appeal to conscience will be useful in dealing with the tragedy of the commons?
6. What does he mean by “mutual coercion”?
7. What is the necessity that we need to recognize?
8. How can humans be “more free”?
The Tragedy of the Commons, by Garrett Hardin, 1968, Published in Science, December 13, 1968
. . .
Tragedy of Freedom in a Commons
The rebuttal to the invisible hand in population control is to be found in a scenario first sketched in a
little-‐known pamphlet (6) in 1833 by a mathematical amateur named William Forster Lloyd (1794-‐1852).
We may well call it "the tragedy of the commons", using the word "tragedy" as the philosopher
Whitehead used it (7): "The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of
the remorseless working of things." He then goes on to say, "This inevitableness of destiny can only be
illustrated in terms of human life by incidents which in fact involve unhappiness. For it is only by them
that the futility of escape can be made evident in the drama."
The tragedy of the commons develops in this way. Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that
each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may
work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers
of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally, however, comes the day of
reckoning, that is, the day when the long-‐desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. At this point,
the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy.
As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less
consciously, he asks, "What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?" This utility has
one negative and one positive component.
1) The positive component is a function of the increment of one animal. Since the herdsman receives all
the proceeds from the sale of the additional animal, the positive utility is nearly +1.
2) The negative component is a function of the additional overgrazing created by one more animal. Since,
however, the effects of overgrazing are shared by all the herdsmen, the negative utility for any particular
decision-‐making herdsman is only a fraction of -‐1.
Adding together the component partial utilities, the rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible
course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another.... But this is the
conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy.
Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit-‐-‐in a world that is
limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a
society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.
Some would say that this is a platitude. Would that it were! In a sense, it was learned thousands of years
ago, but natural selection favors the forces of psychological denial (8). The individual benefits as an
individual from his ability to deny the truth even though society as a whole, of which he is a part, suffers.
Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the wrong thing, but the inexorable succession of
generations requires that the basis for this knowledge be constantly refreshed.
A simple incident that occurred a few years ago in Leominster, Massachusetts, shows how perishable the
knowledge is. During the Christmas shopping season the parking meters downtown were covered with
red plastic bags that bore tags reading: "Do not open until after Christmas. Free parking courtesy of the
mayor and city council." In other words, facing the prospect of an increased demand for already scarce
space, the city fathers reinstituted the system of the commons. (Cynically, we suspect that they gained
more votes than they lost by this retrogressive act.)
In an approximate way, the logic of commons has been understood for a long time, perhaps since the
discovery of agriculture or the invention of private property in real estate. But it is understood mostly
only in special cases which are not sufficiently generalized. Even at this late date, cattlemen leasing
national land on the western ranges demonstrate no more than an ambivalent understanding, in
constantly pressuring federal authorities to increase the head count to the point where overgrazing
produces erosion and weed-‐dominance. Likewise, the oceans of the world continue to suffer from the
survival of the philosophy of the commons. Maritime nations still respond automatically to the
shibboleth of the "freedom of the seas." Professing to believe in "the inexhaustible resources of the
oceans," they bring species after species of fish and whales closer to extinction (9).
The National Parks present another instance of the working out of the tragedy of the commons. At
present, they are open to all, without limit. The parks themselves are limited in extent-‐-‐there is only one
Yosemite Valley-‐-‐whereas population seems to grow without limit. The values that visitors seek the parks
are steadily eroded. Plainly, we must soon cease to treat the parks as commons or they will be of no
value anyone.
What shall we do? We have several options. We might sell them off as private property. We might keep
them as public property, but allocate the right enter them. The allocation might be on the basis of
wealth, by the use of an auction system. It might be on the basis merit, as defined by some agreed-‐upon
standards. It might be by lottery. Or it might be on a first-‐come, first-‐served basis, administered to long
queues. These, I think, are all the reasonable possibilities. They are all objectionable. But we must
choose-‐-‐or acquiesce in the destruction of the commons that we call our National Parks.
Pollution
In a reverse way, the tragedy of the commons reappears in problems of pollution. Here it is not a
question of taking something out of the commons, but of putting something in-‐-‐sewage, or chemical,
radioactive, and heat wastes into water; noxious and dangerous fumes into the air, and distracting and
unpleasant advertising signs into the line of sight. The calculations of utility are much the same as before.
The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less
than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them. Since this is true for everyone, we are locked
into a system of "fouling our own nest," so long as we behave only as independent, rational, free-‐
enterprises.
The tragedy of the commons as a food basket is averted by private property, or something formally like
it. But the air and waters surrounding us cannot readily be fenced, and so the tragedy of the commons as
a cesspool must be prevented by different means, by coercive laws or taxing devices that make it
cheaper for the polluter to treat his pollutants than to discharge them untreated. We have not
progressed as far with the solution of this problem as we have with the first. Indeed, our particular
concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors
pollution. The owner of a factory on the bank of a stream-‐-‐whose property extends to the middle of the
stream, often has difficulty seeing why it is not his natural right to muddy the waters flowing past his
door. The law, always behind the times, requires elaborate stitching and fitting to adapt it to this newly
perceived aspect of the commons.
The pollution problem is a consequence of population. It did not much matter how a lonely American
frontiersman disposed of his waste. "Flowing water purifies itself every 10 miles," my grandfather used
to say, and the myth was near enough to the truth when he was a boy, for there were not too many
people. But as population became denser, the natural chemical and biological recycling processes
became overloaded, calling for a redefinition of property rights.
. . .
Freedom To Breed Is Intolerable
The tragedy of the commons is involved in population problems in another way. In a world governed
solely by the principle of "dog eat dog"-‐-‐if indeed there ever was such a world-‐-‐how many children a
family had would not be a matter of public concern. Parents who bred too exuberantly would leave
fewer descendants, not more, because they would be unable to care adequately for their children. David
Lack and others have found that such a negative feedback demonstrably controls the fecundity of birds
(11). But men are not birds, and have not acted like them for millenniums, at least.
If each human family were dependent only on its own resources; if the children of improvident parents
starved to death; if, thus, overbreeding brought its own "punishment" to the germ line-‐-‐then there would
be no public interest in controlling the breeding of families. But our society is deeply committed to the
welfare state (12), and hence is confronted with another aspect of the tragedy of the commons.
In a welfare state, how shall we deal with the family, the religion, the race, or the class (or indeed any
distinguishable and cohesive group) that adopts overbreeding as a policy to secure its own
aggrandizement (13)? To couple the concept of freedom to breed with the belief that everyone born has
an equal right to the commons is to lock the world into a tragic course of action.
Unfortunately this is just the course of action that is being pursued by the United Nations. In late 1967,
some 30 nations agreed to the following (14):
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of
society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest
with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else.
It is painful to have to deny categorically the validity of this right; denying it, one feels as uncomfortable
as a resident of Salem, Massachusetts, who denied the reality of witches in the 17th century. At the
present time, in liberal quarters, something like a taboo acts to inhibit criticism of the United Nations.
There is a feeling that the United Nations is "our last and best hope,'' that we shouldn't find fault with it;
we shouldn't play into the hands of the archconservatives. However, let us not forget what Robert Louis
Stevenson said: "The truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the enemy." If we love
the truth we must openly deny the validity of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, even though it
is promoted by the United Nations. We should also join with Kingsley Davis (15) in attempting to get
planned Parenthood-‐World Population to see the error of its ways in embracing the same tragic ideal.
Conscience Is Self-‐Eliminating
It is a mistake to think that we can control the breeding of mankind in the long run by an appeal to
conscience. Charles Galton Darwin made this point when he spoke on the centennial of the publication
of his grandfather's great book. The argument is straightforward and Darwinian.
People vary. Confronted with appeals to limit breeding, some people will undoubtedly respond to the
plea more than others. Those who have more children will produce a larger fraction of the next
generation than those with more susceptible consciences. The difference will be accentuated, generation
by generation. . . .
. . .
Mutual Coercion Mutually Agreed Upon
The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some
sort. Consider bank-‐robbing. The man who takes money from a bank acts as if the bank were a
commons. How do we prevent such action? Certainly not by trying to control his behavior solely by a
verbal appeal to his sense of responsibility. Rather than rely on propaganda we follow Frankel's lead and
insist that a bank is not a commons; we seek the definite social arrangements that will keep it from
becoming a commons. That we thereby infringe on the freedom of would-‐be robbers we neither deny
nor regret.
The morality of bank-‐robbing is particularly easy to understand because we accept complete prohibition
of this activity. We are willing to say "Thou shalt not rob banks," without providing for exceptions. But
temperance also can be created by coercion. Taxing is a good coercive device. To keep downtown
shoppers temperate in their use of parking space we introduce parking meters for short periods, and
traffic fines for longer ones. We need not actually forbid a citizen to park as long as he wants to; we need
merely make it increasingly expensive for him to do so. Not prohibition, but carefully biased options are
what we offer him. A Madison Avenue man might call this persuasion; I prefer the greater candor of the
word coercion.
Coercion is a dirty word to most liberals now, but it need not forever be so. As with the four-‐letter words,
its dirtiness can be cleansed away by exposure to the light, by saying it over and over without apology or
embarrassment. To many, the word coercion implies arbitrary decisions of distant and irresponsible
bureaucrats; but this is not a necessary part of its meaning. The only kind of coercion I recommend is
mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.
To say that we mutually agree to coercion is not to say that we are required to enjoy it, or even to
pretend we enjoy it. Who enjoys taxes? We all grumble about them. But we accept compulsory taxes
because we recognize that voluntary taxes would favor the conscienceless. We institute and
(grumblingly) support taxes and other coercive devices to escape the horror of the commons. . . .
It is one of the peculiarities of the warfare between reform and the status quo that it is thoughtlessly
governed by a double standard. Whenever a reform measure is proposed it is often defeated when its
opponents triumphantly discover a flaw in it. As Kingsley Davis has pointed out (21), worshippers of the
status quo sometimes imply that no reform is possible without unanimous agreement, an implication
contrary to historical fact. As nearly as I can make out, automatic rejection of proposed reforms is based
on one of two unconscious assumptions: (i) that the status quo is perfect; or (ii) that the choice we face is
between reform and no action; if the proposed reform is imperfect, we presumably should take no
action at all, while we wait for a perfect proposal.
But we can never do nothing. That which we have done for thousands of years is also action. It also
produce evils. Once we are aware that status quo is action, we can then compare its discoverable
advantages and disadvantages with the predicted advantages and disadvantages of the proposed reform,
discounting as best we can for our lack of experience. On the basis of such a comparison, we can make a
rational decision which will not involve the unworkable assumption that only perfect systems are
tolerable.
Recognition of Necessity
Perhaps the simplest summary of this analysis of man's population problems is this: the commons, if
justifiable at all, is justifiable only under conditions of low-‐population density. As the human population
has increased, the commons has had to be abandoned in one aspect after another. First we abandoned
the commons in food gathering, enclosing farm land and restricting pastures and hunting and fishing
areas. These restrictions are still not complete throughout the world.
Somewhat later we saw that the commons as a place for waste disposal would also have to be
abandoned. Restrictions on the disposal of domestic sewage are widely accepted in the Western world;
we are still struggling to close the commons to pollution by automobiles, factories, insecticide sprayers,
fertilizing operations, and atomic energy installations.
In a still more embryonic state is our recognition of the evils of the commons in matters of pleasure.
There is almost no restriction on the propagation of sound waves in the public medium. The shopping
public is assaulted with mindless music, without its consent. Our government is paying out billions of
dollars to create supersonic transport which will disturb 50,000 people for every one person who is
whisked from coast to coast 3 hours faster. Advertisers muddy the airwaves of radio and television and
pollute the view of travelers. We are a long way from outlawing the commons in matters of pleasure. Is
this because our Puritan inheritance makes us view pleasure as something of a sin, and pain (that is, the
pollution of advertising) as the sign of virtue?
Every new enclosure of the commons involves the infringement of somebody's personal liberty.
Infringements made in the distant past are accepted because no contemporary complains of a loss. It is
the newly proposed infringements that we vigorously oppose; cries of "rights" and "freedom" fill the air.
But what does "freedom" mean? When men mutually agreed to pass laws against robbing, mankind
became more free, not less so. Individuals locked into the logic of the commons are free only to bring on
universal ruin; once they see the necessity of mutual coercion, they become free to pursue other goals. I
believe it was Hegel who said, "Freedom is the recognition of necessity."
The most important aspect of necessity that we must now recognize, is the necessity of abandoning the
commons in breeding. No technical solution can rescue us from the misery of overpopulation. Freedom
to breed will bring ruin to all. At the moment, to avoid hard decisions many of us are tempted to
propagandize for conscience and responsible parenthood. The temptation must be resisted, because an
appeal to independently acting consciences selects for the disappearance of all conscience in the long
run, and an increase in anxiety in the short.
The only way we can preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms is by relinquishing the
freedom to breed, and that very soon. "Freedom is the recognition of necessity"-‐-‐and it is the role of
education to reveal to all the necessity of abandoning the freedom to breed. Only so, can we put an end
to this aspect of the tragedy of the commons.
References
1. J. B. Wiesner and H. F. York, Sci. Amer. 211 (No. 4). 27 (1964).
2. G. Hardin, J. Hered. 50, 68 (1959); S. von Hoernor, Science 137, 18 (1962).
3. J. von Neumann and O. Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, N.J., 1947), p. 11.
4. J. H. Fremlin. New Sci., No. 415 (1964), p. 285.
5. A. Smith, The Wealth of Nations (Modern Library, New York, 1937), p. 423.
6. W. F. Lloyd, Two Lectures on the Checks to Population (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, England, 1833), reprinted (in part) in Population, Evolution,
and Birth Control, G. Hardin. Ed. (Freeman, San Francisco, 1964), p. 37.
7. A. N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (Mentor, New York, 1948), p. 17.
8. G. Hardin, Ed. Population, Evolution. and Birth Control (Freeman, San Francisco, 1964). p. 56.
9. S. McVay, Sci. Amer. 216 (No. 8), 13 (1966).
10. J. Fletcher, Situation Ethics (Westminster, Philadelphia, 1966).
11. D. Lack, The Natural Regulation of Animal Numbers (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1954).
12. H. Girvetz, From Wealth to Welfare (Stanford Univ. Press. Stanford, Calif., 1950).
13. G. Hardin, Perspec. Biol. Med. 6, 366 (1963).
14. U. Thant, Int. Planned Parenthood News, No.168 (February 1968), p. 3.
15. K. Davis, Science 158, 730 (1967).
16. S. Tax, Ed., Evolution after Darwin (Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1960), vol. 2, p. 469.
17. G. Bateson, D. D. Jackson, J. Haley, J. Weakland, Behav. Sci. 1. 251 (1956).
18. P. Goodman, New York Rev. Books 10(8), 22 (23 May 1968).
19. A. Comfort, The Anxiety Makers (Nelson, London, 1967).
20. C. Frankel, The Case for Modern Man (Harper, New York, 1955), p. 203.
21. J. D. Roslansky, Genetics and the Future of Man (Appleton-‐Century-‐Crofts, New York, 1966). p. 177.
Transnational Challenges 251
Chapter 8
Transnational
Challenges
The State System Under Stress
ray
world politics has been about the competitive struggle among states, especially
In the Cold War era and, indeed, throughout much of the past several centuries,
the great powers, to acquire land, people, wealth, and influence. Security and
survival were determined largely by one's success, often through military
means, in capturing those valuable assets more effectively than other states. In
the view of many scholars, however, the twenty-first century is presenting new
kinds of challenges that come not from the armies of other states but from an ar-
problems, including environmental pollution, illegal immigration, infectious
y of transnational (or what Maryann Cusimano aptly labels "transsovereign")
diseases, drug smuggling, and terrorism. These challenges play havoc with the
idea of state sovereignty and, by implication, with the realist understanding of
how the world works. That is a view that liberals, constructivists, feminists, and
neo-Marxists would tend to share.
For realist scholars such as Stephen Krasner, however, these issues threaten
neither the sovereignty of the state nor the traditional realist understanding
unique, and states continue to have the resourcefulness to respond to them.
States, he notes, have a "keen instinct for survival," and, thus, "those who pro-
claim the death of sovereignty misread history.". It thereby follows that as long
as we continue to organize human societies within the institution of the state,
concern over national security and the state's relative power will remain the
driving force in international life.
The range of global issues over which this debate can be waged is extensive.
For the purposes of this chapter, three issues will be addressed as representa-
tive of the debate. They are the global environment, global health and disease,
and the flow of information over the Internet. In each case, we will first describe
the challenge posed and will then assess how well sovereign states are dealing
with the problem. This analysis will provide you with both an understanding of
each issue and an appreciation of how you might view these issues within the
debate over how the world works. First, however, we will examine the theoreti-
cal issues at stake.
Canadian icebreaker in Arctic
waters. Climate change is opening
up Arctic waters to commercial
shipping and military vessels
of countries competing to claim
the resources of the region. Will
cooperative solutions to climate
change and Artic management be
found, or will tension and conflict
over those challenges prevail? What
would the various IR paradigms
predict?
Learning Objectives
8-1 Compare and contrast the concepts of national security and human
security
From National Security to Human
Security
8-1 Compare and contrast the concepts of national security and human
8-2 Explain how transnational environmental problems pose a challenge
to sovereign states, and assess how states cope with that challenge in
the three response scenarios discussed in this section.
8-3 Explain how infectious diseases challenge the essence of the state
system, and discuss how globalization has contributed to that challenge.
8-4 Explain how the Internet poses a threat to state sovereignty, and
assess the ability of states to respond to that threat.
security.
Even the most dyed-in-the-wool realist would likely acknowledge the reality of
global problems such as pollution, infectious disease, or international criminal
organizations and would accept the need for remedial action in response. To be
a realist does not require one to be indifferent to global warming or the spread
of a disease such as AIDS. The differences between realists and their critics relate
250
252 Chapter 8
Transnational Challenges 253
Figure 8.1 Two Approaches to Security
National Security
Key Actors
Human Security
Sovereign States
Individuals, Nonstate Actors, and States
Goals
Protection of State Interests
Protection of Individual
Human Rights and Interests
Source of Threat to Goals
Other States
Environment, Disease, Crime,
Poverty, War
Response to Threats
Self-Help; Military Power
Global Cooperation;
Nonmilitary Instruments
to whether they believe these problems require rethinking certain fundamental
assumptions about how the world works.
First, in the realist view, the main threats and challenges faced by states
emanate from other states in particular, the threat posed by the use, or poten-
tial use, of military power. However, as scholars like Cusimano argue, the new
global challenges like pollution and AIDS neither emanate from other states nor
are military in character. They result from the actions of an array of nonstate
actors pursuing their individual or organizational interests. These new transna-
tional forces pay little heed to state interests or boundaries, and if recent world
trends are any indication, it may be harder for a state to defend its borders from
these challenges than from foreign armies.
Second, the traditional realist approach to defending the national interest
has been self-help, specifically, the accumulation of military power. However,
critics suggest that individual states acting alone cannot adequately respond to
these new threats, as they mock the notion of the sovereign border and require
cooperative, global responses that extend far beyond self-help. As for military
power, it seems largely irrelevant to problems such as environmental degrada-
tion or infectious disease.
Third, the main goals of statecraft and foreign policy have traditionally
been defense of sovereignty and the promotion of national security. However,
to critics of realism, these new transnational challenges suggest a need not only
to sacrifice some national sovereignty but also to think beyond national security
to a more inclusive notion of human security. This new concept focuses on the
security of individual humans facing a wide range of political, military, eco-
nomic, and environmental threats, not all of which directly emanate from other
states (see Figure 8.1).
The idea of human security achieved prominence in 1994, when it
emerged as the central organizing theme of that year's United Nations
Human Development Report. The report argued that the traditional notion
of security interpreted "as security of territory from external aggression or as
protection of national interests in foreign policy" is too narrow, as it overlooks
"the legitimate concerns of ordinary people who sought security in their
daily lives" from threats such as crime, hunger, disease, and environmental
hazards. 3
Skeptics have suggested that this idea of human security, encompassing as
it does such a diverse range of problems, is too broad and vague to be useful
either to international relations theorists or to policy-makers. However, to the
extent that "human security” refers to more than a list of global problems but
is also intended, as suggested above, as a new way to think about the essential
nature of world politics, it presents a theoretical challenge to realism and a new
perspective on how the world works. In examining the issues of the environ-
ment, disease, and the Internet in the following pages, these theoretical issues
can be more clearly illustrated.
human security
View of security
emphasizing protec-
tion of individu-
als from political,
military, economic,
and environmental
threats; challenges
the idea of 'national
security" as too state-
centric.
The Global Environment
8-2 Explain how transnational environmental problems pose a challenge to
sovereign states, and assess how states cope with that challenge in the
three response scenarios discussed in this section.
In 1798 an English scholar by the name of Thomas Malthus penned his influen-
tial “An Essay on the Principle of Population." Malthus argued that the supply
of food would not be able to keep up with growth in population and that only
moral constraint limiting reproduction, combined with human disasters such
as war, disease, and famine, would keep population growth in check. Today
the Malthusian label can be loosely attached to those who argue that we live in Malthusian
a world of finite resources and limits to growth. Jettisoning Malthus's specific One influenced by
predictions and time lines, these contemporary Malthusians make two interre-
lated points: (1) growing demand for the earth's finite resources-energy, miner- supply of food would
als, fresh water-is raising serious questions about future availability of those
degrading the quality of the earth's environment
by distinguishing four different types of goods that people regularly consume:
private goods, public goods, common pool resources, and club goods.
four types of goods are distinguished from one another along two different
Thomas Malthus
not be able to keep
up with the world
porary Malthusians
argue that we live
a
resources and that
there are limits to
growth.
Those
254 Chapter 8
Transnational Challenges 255
we will focus on two central and interrelated issues:
Figure 8.2 Four Types of Goods
is rooted in finding ways to avoid the tragedy of the commons and the free-rider
problem characteristic of common pool resources and global public goods. To
illustrate that challenge,
energy and climate change. The discussion of those issues will then be followed
examination of approaches to coping with the challenge presented. Are
the Malthusians right, or is their pessimism overstated?
Excludable
Non-Excludable
Private Good
Common Pool Resource
by an
Rival
(food, clothing, cars)
(fisheries, well water)
The Energy Challenge
Club Good
on reliable sources of energy. Since the beginning of the industrial
tions, depend
tion of
Public Good
Non-Rival
(cable TV)
(Wikipedia, public radio)
public good
A good or service
whose benefits are
freely available to all
without possibility of
exclusion and whose
dimensions. First, are they excludable—that is, is it possible or not to exclude
consumption by one people from consuming the good in question? Second, are they rival—that is,
individual does not
limit the ability of
does one person's consumption of that good limit the ability of others to enjoy
others to consume
its use?
that same good or
Figure 8.2 illustrates these distinctions. A private good (e.g., a pizza) is both
service.
excludable and rival. People unwilling to pay can be excluded from eating a
free-rider problem pizza, and a pizza is rival since my consumption of a slice means that slice is
The tendency of not available for others to eat. The opposite of a private good is a public good,
individuals or
which is both non-excludable and non-rival. A good example is Wikipedia.
organizations to fail
to contribute to the Whether or not you contribute to one of Wikipedia's periodic fundraising cam-
production of a public paigns, you can continue to use the product, and your use of it does not limit
good or service, since
those who do not anyone else's ability to do so. Such public goods are susceptible to the free-rider
contribute can con-
problem, whereby some benefit, without contribution, from the efforts of others.
tinue to benefit from
that good or service. The two other types of goods are a club good, which is excludable but non-rival
(e.g., cable TV), and a common pool resource, which is rival but not excludable
common pool
(e.g., ocean fisheries). Common pool resources are susceptible to what ecolo-
A good or service
gist Garrett Hardin termed the tragedy of the commons, in which a commonly
which is not exclud- available resource like a fishery is abused, exploited, and overused without any-
able but whose
one feeling a responsibility to protect it. 4
supply is finite, thus
causing one person's Global environmental politics is all about common pool resources and pub-
consumption to limit
lic goods. For example, ocean fisheries or oil deposits in international waters
the ability of others
to consume it.
are good examples of common pool resources (non-excludable but rival). To
the extent that most natural resources are finite and rival, one might argue that
tragedy of the com-
they generally can be considered common pool resources. At the same time, the
Concept popularized concept of a “global public good" has been increasingly utilized over the past
by ecologist Garrett decade or so to refer to things like a clean environment or the eradication of
Hardin, in which
infectious diseases. According to the World Health Organization: "Public goods
a common pool
resource is exploited become global ... in nature when the benefits flow to more than one country and
without anyone feel-
ing a responsibility to
no country can effectively be denied access to those benefits."5 Countries can
protect it.
free-ride just as individuals do. Thus, the central global environmental challenge
growth and human well-being than energy. All aspects of human activity,
Of all the world's scarce resources, none is more fundamental to economic
including food production, manufacturing, transportation, and communica-
age, human economic activity has heavily depended for its energy needs on fos-
sil fuels-coal, natural gas, and petroleum. While coal originally was the most
important of the three, government and industry turned increasingly to petro-
coal, oil was easier to transport, often cheaper, and it burned cleaner, thereby
releasing fewer harmful toxins into the atmosphere. The rise of the automobile
petroleum, rapidly increased dependence on oil; by the last decades of the
twentieth century, oil had become the lifeblood of all developed economies and
crucial for all others seeking to develop.
The challenge for the twenty-first century is satisfying a rapidly increasing
global demand for energy. According to US government data, global consump-
energy
almost doubled between 1980 and 2012, and if you exclude the
United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan, consumption in the rest of the world
over that same period increased 450 percent. Rapid economic growth in China
and other developing countries is fueling the bulk of the increase in global
energy demand. Between 1980 and 2012, Chinese energy consumption increased
600 percent, and in 2012 China was the world's largest energy user accounting
for about 20 percent of global energy consumption
At the same time that demand is increasing, some contemporary
Malthusians worry about the future supply of energy, especially oil. In recent
years, some experts have suggested that the world is approaching peak peak oil
The point at which
oil, the point when global oil production reaches its peak and then starts
the global production
of oil peaks and then
to decline. While that decline is expected to be gradual, it would signal a
turning point in the global energy economy that could set off a speculative starts to decline.
panic and a rise in oil prices even beyond what the supply and demand situ-
ation would anticipate
. Though some have predicted that peak oil will occur
by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), an agency of the US govern-
ment, has suggested that the peak would not occur until the middle of the
century.
resource
mons
within a matter of years, a major study of world energy resources conducted
256 Chapter 8
Transnational Challenges 257
about peak
The Climate Change Challenge
intriguing conversation with his
In 1995, US President Bill Clinton had an
Chinese counterpart, Jiang Zemin. In an interview with New York Times colum-
nist Thomas Friedman, Clinton noted that the Chinese president asked about
US attitudes and intentions toward China. Clinton surprised the Chinese presi-
dent in noting that the greatest security concern posed by China to the United
States had little to do with Chinese military power or policy toward Taiwan, but,
instead, that the Chinese people "will want to get rich in exactly the same way
got rich." Clinton went on to talk about the impact of more than one billion
Chinese driving cars and emitting greenhouse gases on a scale matching that
of individual Americans, and he suggested that would lead to environmental
we
catastrophe. 11
since that conversation, concern over the environmental chal-
In the
years
10
climate change
nation of the two.
worry
Declining global oil prices in 2014 cooled some of the
oil, with many observers pointing to new technologies like fracking as the
antidote to Malthusian pessimism. Yet even under the more optimistic sce-
narios, a continuing source of concern is the location of many of the world's
most prolific oil fields in politically unstable regions. A 2014 report from the
US Energy Information Administration, while noting that world supplies of
oil should be adequate for at least the next 25 years, also notes that such pro-
jections are uncertain and assume the absence of geopolitical events capable
of undercutting supply. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, eight
states in the politically volatile Persian Gulf/North African region (Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria)
accounted for approximately 69 percent of the world's proven reserves of oil.
Add to that the 7.4 percent of proven world reserves found in Russia and sev-
eral unstable former Soviet states along the Caspian Sea, and another 7.4 per-
cent in Venezuela and one ends up with over 80 percent of global oil reserves
in places where it is not hard to imagine politically generated disruptions of
supply.
In fact, much recent volatility in world oil supplies and prices has been
rooted in political causes. In the mid-1970s the first of the great oil shocks to
Organization of hit the global economy was due to the effectiveness of the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in artificially raising the global price
Countries (OPEC)
Cartel of oil-producing
of oil. Composed largely of Middle Eastern and Persian Gulf oil states, OPEC
states, many located established production quotas for its member states that limited the amount of
in the Middle East
oil produced, reduced the global supply of oil available for export, and thereby
and Persian Gulf, who
through the establish- raised both the price of oil and the revenues of oil-exporting countries. In 1979
ment of production the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan combined with the Iranian Revolution, which
quotas for member
states seek to control
replaced the US-backed shah of Iran with an Islamic fundamentalist regime, led
the global supply and to a second politically inspired oil shock. By the end of the decade, a barrel of
price of oil.
Persian Gulf oil, available for a couple of dollars at the beginning of the 1970s,
hovered in the 40 dollar range.
In the early years of the twenty-first century, a combination of economic,
political, and geological factors once again focused global attention on oil sup-
plies and prices. The sustained growth in the Chinese thirst for oil continued to
put long-term pressure on global oil supplies and prices. The terrorist attacks
of September 11, 2001, the subsequent war on terror launched by the Bush
administration, and the war in Iraq together reminded the world of how much
it depended for the bulk of its oil on the politically unstable Middle East and
Persian Gulf region. And the April 2010 explosion of British Petroleum's ultra-
deepwater offshore drilling rig, Deepwater Horizon, and the subsequent disas-
trous oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico led some to suggest that even if we are not
in an era of "peak oil," it is an era of "tough oil" as the search for new supplies
will necessitate drilling in less accessible and more environmentally fragile
locations.
An increase in the
average temperature
ties, or some combi-
nation of the two.
lenge posed by fossil fuel emissions and their impact both on air quality and cli-
mate change has grown more intense. Since most scientists believe that burning
fossil fuels contributes to climate change, any solution to the energy challenge An extended altera-
that is based on finding and using more oil, gas, or coal will likely exacerbate tion in Earth's climate
this problem.
Climate change refers to any extended alteration in Earth's climate pro- ties, or some combi-
factors, human activi-
duced by natural factors, human activities, or some combination of the two.
Currently, the central climate change concern is global warming—the increase global warming
in the average temperature of Earth's lower atmosphere. Experts disagree on
specific dimensions of the challenge: how much warming we might anticipate
, of Earth's atmospher
how severe the consequences might be, and what the time line is for all these produced by natural
developments. However, widespread consensus exists among climate scientists
factors, human activ
on certain basic questions.
First, most scientists agree that the Earth is warming. The US Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) notes that from 1901 to 2013, the surface temperature
of Earth has increased at an average rate of 0.15°F per decade a total increase
in temperature over that period of roughly 1.65°F—and that 2001-2010 was
the warmest decade on record since thermometer-based observations began.
Furthermore, the EPA expects the pace of warming in the twenty-first century
to accelerate, with average global temperature increasing another 2-11.5°F
by 2100, depending on the pace of greenhouse gas emissions and the climate
projection model utilized. In 2013 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
13
Change (IPCC) established by the United Nations confirmed the assessment
that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal," that "each of the last three
decade since 1850," and that "in the Northern Hemisphere, 1983-2012 was likely
the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years."
Second, the scientific consensus is that this global warming cannot be
explained entirely by natural factors. This view was confirmed by the IPCC, which
suggests both that it is "extremely likely" that over half of the observed increase in
12
*14
Transnational Challenges 259
258 Chapter 8
the price of oil in the United States; new coal-fired plants being built in China at
a rate of one per week will increase the emissions of greenhouse gases that may
nullify European Union efforts to combat global warming. In 2006 an "Asian
brown cloud" produced largely by Chinese pollution drifted over the Korean
Peninsula before making its way across the Pacific Ocean. Using a US satellite
to track the cloud as it made its way over US territory, scientists detected a rise
in dangerous pollutants associated with cancer, heart disease, and respiratory
ailments. One scientist found that filters deployed to measure pollution in the
mountains of eastern California were "the darkest that we've seen" outside
and performance of athletes participating in the Beijing Olympics. While air
quality during the games was the best Beijing had experienced in years, that
many
5 only because the Chinese government had temporarily closed
tories and placed restrictions on automobiles in the weeks preceding the start
of the games. In 2012, a new study suggested that the annual drifting of the
Asian brown cloud to the United States could warm the United States by 0.4°C
18
In 2008 concerns ran high that pollution would harm the health
urban areas.
was
fac-
(0.72°F) by 2024.19
16
surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was anthropogenic (human generated) and
that the evidence of the anthropogenic sources of climate change has increased
over time.15 The major human contributions to global warming come from burn-
ing fossil fuels and from deforestation. Burning fossil fuels in cars, homes, and
businesses emits carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases that trap
heat in our atmosphere. While some quantity of such gases is natural and, indeed,
essential to keep Earth warm enough for human survival, over the past two cen-
turies the Industrial Revolution has produced a rapid increase in the presence of
such gases. This trend has been further exacerbated by deforestation, which has
reduced the presence of trees and other plant life that absorb carbon dioxide.
Third, there is concern that climate change, if unabated, will have costly
effects on human health and life. For example, warming is already melting
glaciers and polar ice caps, which in turn leads to rising sea levels and poten-
tial flooding and permanent submersion of coastal territories. Global warming
could also shift patterns of human agriculture, bringing longer growing seasons
to some locations but excessive heat and drought to others. Warming can also
impact the spread of climate-sensitive diseases, especially those spread via
insects, as it can extend the geographic range of disease transmission as well as
the duration of disease transmission seasons. Some see these effects as poten-
tially catastrophic, while others caution against exaggeration and hysteria, but
almost all scientific observers believe that significant potential exists for harmful
effects if global warming is left unchecked.
This climate change consensus came under attack in late 2009 when hun-
dreds of private e-mail messages and scientific documents on the server of a
prominent British university were unearthed by computer hackers. The e-mails
discussed tactics for combating climate change skeptics, derisive comments
about those critics, and, perhaps most damning, discussion of how to engage in
statistical “tricks” to hide some recent evidence of a decline in temperatures. 17
While some have argued that the e-mails provide cause to seriously undermine
the prevailing climate change orthodoxy, others, indeed the vast majority of
scientists, have argued that notwithstanding the questionable behavior of a few
of their colleagues, the evidence remains overwhelming that the climate change
threat is both real and serious.
While oil shortages and climate change are perhaps the most dramatic
and widely discussed resource and environmental threats facing Earth and
its human inhabitants, they are not the only such challenges we face. On the
resource front, some observers expect that in parts of the world, shortages of
water may soon rival shortages of energy as a reason for concern. On the pol-
lution front, smog, degradation of lakes and streams, and acid rain, though
lacking the drama of global climate change, also have significant adverse health,
economic, and quality-of-life consequences.
Most important, what all these environmental challenges share is a disre-
gard for sovereign borders. Pollution from factories in Detroit produces acid
rain across the border in Canada; increased energy consumption in India raises
Responses to the Challenge: Three Scenarios
Experts have imagined a wide range of possible responses to the myriad and
often interlinked global environmental challenges of the twenty-first century.
However, most scenarios fall into one of three broad categories: (1) geopolitical
conflict, (2) markets and technology to the rescue, or (3) effective global regula-
tion. While many observers might emphasize the greater likelihood of one out-
come over the others, they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
GLOBAL CONFLICT The realist paradigm does not, of course, offer any
opinion on the relative scarcity or abundance of a resource such as petroleum
or on the causes or severity of global climate change. What realism does con-
tribute to the discussion is an expectation that states will attempt to respond
to these challenges by putting their own interests first even if, as is likely, that
comes at the expense of other states. Thus, realists see global environmental
problems as yet another potential source of international tension and conflict.
The most immediate source of that conflict is likely to be competition for scarce
resources.
Geopolitical conflict over resources is hardly a novel development. Japan's
surprise attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was
intended to preempt a US naval response to seizure of oil fields in Southeast
Asia. Iraq's August 1990 attack on Kuwait aimed at control over the rich Kuwaiti
oil fields and the revenues they generate. The US-led global military coalition
that evicted Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the 1991 Persian Gulf War sought to
ensure that Saddam Hussein did not seize control of Persian Gulf oil.
The United States is not the only outside power with a vital stake in access
to global oil supplies and other important resources. Japan, the European
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