The Modern Day Commons

       In the late 1960s, a man named Garrett Hardin wrote an essay called “The Tragedy of the Commons”. Hardin’s essay essentially pointed out the issue that occurs when multiple groups of people share the same resource. He said that individuals tend to think of the short-term need for the resource and how they don’t think about the long-term consequences on the environment or about sharing the resource equally. He points out that without a set group that has the resource’s best interest in mind, other people will overuse it and eventually lead it to be nonexistent.

So how does this apply to today?

Well, there is a multitude of resources that everyone on this planet shares and overuses. One example of this is the ocean, the ocean is shared by a variety of different nations, not one with the sole authority to pass laws regarding its use. Because of this, we have had many problems arise due to things like overfishing, littering/pollution, and dying habitats such as coral reefs.  Each nation manages to protect their own coastlines but none really control anything beyond that, which has become a major problem in the overall health of our planet’s oceans. Massive piles of garbage called gyres have been created in spots where currents meet and form a circular pattern. Because of these islands of garbage both our marine species and bird species are being harmed. One example of a piece of trash’s life is this: Trash goes into the ocean, trash gets caught up in a current, trash meets a bunch of other trash and form a floating pile of trash, fish mistake trash for food, fish’s stomach gets full of trash and causes it to get sick, bird eats fish, bird gets sich because it also cannot digest the trash, bird dies, both bird and fish populations dwindle, biodiversity of the ocean decreases. This situation happens all the time and in many different varieties. Our oceans are being destroyed, luckily we have many different groups trying to make a change.

There are many different ways we can help our oceans. One way is to reduce our use of plastic and recycle or compost all of our other waste. Another way is to not litter and pick up any trash we see. Lastly, we can also donate to organizations trying to make a difference.

Save our oceans!