1. Describe the logic of the tragedy of the commons making sure to take careful logic steps as you explain it. Specify a common pool resource and show us you know what that is. Be sure to specify the costs and benefits to the people in the scenario. Finally, thoroughly explain how the logic leads to a tragic outcome (of overuse).
Hardin describes “The Tragedy of the Commons” as a fallacy in the idea of a free, shared resource. Hardin’s point is to illustrate that shared use without limit is not sustainable. Furthermore, the more available the resource, the more excessive use will exist. Also, inequality of use exists because of those that take advantage of the free resource over others. A good example of this problem is the congestion of roads throughout the U.S. Many large cities have government-built roads for citizens to use for commute and commerce in order to facilitate economic growth for the city as a whole. The issue here is that, like the herdsman discussed in Hardin’s article, citizens then use and overuse these roads excessively, without penalty. This excessive use, at little or no additional cost to them (gas & vehicle wear), creates a much larger toll on the availability of that road as a resource such as road maintenance and simply traffic congestion.
2. Describe the three approaches to changing or regulating human behavior that Hardin and Sen collectively tell us about; coercion, persuasion, and collaboration. Explain how each aims to alter behavior and identify at least one positive and one negative element of each.
Dictionary.com defines each of the following:
- Coercion – force or the power to use force in gaining compliance, as by a government or police force.
- Persuasion – a sect, group, or faction holding or advocating a particular belief, idea, ideology, etc.
- Collaboration – a product resulting collaboration.
As I see it, these are three approaches mentioned by Hardin and Sen aim at bringing about change in people. Coercion, as listed above, resorts to excessive force that mandates what people should or should not do. While this method is effective in the short term for immediate change, there are civil rights issues and backlash that can result. Persuasion, next, is a more passive approach to changing the way people think. While shedding light on a possibly better idea in a peaceful manner, this method can have limited effects due to its conservative nature. Finally, collaboration is a progressive approach that looks for creative ways to work with those to be changed in an almost misdirected way in order to achieve the goal. While much can be accomplished for the greater good through swift uptake and motivated users, this collaborative approach can be slow moving, with the possibility of the situation worsening before it gets better.
3. Explain the difference between engaging in prohibition and legislative temperance according to Hardin. How are these two things different and why is one harder than the other?
Further reading into Hardin’s article talks a bit about prohibition versus temperance. Prohibition, Hardin says, is easy to legislate, but hard to enforce. The American Prohibition of alcohol, or war on drugs is a great example of these failures to enforce. Large sums of money and uncountable resources have been dedicated to upholding these laws. Temperance, on the other hand, Hardin says, is much tougher to accomplish due to its delicate nature. To summarize, Hardin’s suggests that a legislative middle ground, or temperance, should be obtained through “positive feedback”. In other words, systems should be established with continuous improvement in mind. This in itself is a delicate process.
4. Articulate in your own words how the text’s author justifies focusing on technology as a unique aspect of environmental policy. What justification(s) do they offer and why?
Technology plays an interesting role in environmental policy. It deserves its own dimension in the book’s framework because its interactions with each of the other elements. While many technical solutions exist in solving many of the world’s ecological problems, technology also brings about many other problems which are sometimes unintentional. Technology reaches into the values dimension in how it effects the lives of humans every day. There are technological constraints that are center spotlight in the political and management dimensions, like with the rise of autonomous vehicles. At the same time, e-waste has been mentioned many times in this course and in the text which, of course, is derived from the development of new technologies which are sought after and consumed at unprecedented rates. All of these intertwined connections justify tech as a facet in environmental policy by itself.
5. Identify and explain three reasons why New York City failed to implement tolls as a solution to the problem of congestion. Make sure each reason is drawn from a different dimension of our text author’s framework.
First, the political dimension jumps out as an obvious reason NYC could not fix their congestion problem. While plans were developed by the executive branch, jurisdictions and conflicts of political agendas lead to the neglect of such legislation, and finally its demise. Second, the management dimension played a role in failing to handle the existing infrastructure and demand for the roads, leading to ultimate failure. Past plans of mass transit were too few and mismanaged projects of urban sprawl created a positive feedback of increased coverage and skyrocketing demand. These aspects combined to put NYC far above its carrying capacity. Third, the values dimension is definitely represented, as it usually is, as a contributor to this urban environmental failure. While alternatives in housing location (city, state, and country included), the greater NYC metropolitan area chooses to commute in their own vehicles to and from work. One might look at this cause as a group of millions of enablers. Mass transit and bicycles are underutilized alternatives which could have avoided the issue to begin with.
6. In your own words explain, primarily from the textbook (Cpt 3), why Singapore and London were able to implement congestion pricing as a solution to traffic/pollution and why New York was not. Carefully explain the key differences that made the policy fail in one place, and carefully identify the reasons they were successfully implemented in the others.
These cities were fortunate enough to benefit from adopting a congestion market to mitigate traffic and the pollution associated with it mostly due to their unencumbered uptake. Sure, there were nay-sayers and opposition, but in the end, the policy was pushed through. The result was overwhelming improvement in each city which otherwise wouldn’t have imposed the costs on itself. The leaders of these two cities took it upon themselves to pursue a policy for the greater good, while seeming to be wrongful in their actions initially in the short term. Bureaucracy in the New York example shows a stark opposite of effectiveness in implementing congestion pricing. Hopefully, autonomous electric vehicles of the future, paired with a growing value of nature with a cycling culture will circumvent the need for a congestion tax in the end.