Written by: Andrea F. Gutiérrez Villalvazo
This week’s article corresponds to the topics of limits to growth and the tragedy of the commons. In general, both subjects correspond to what is known as system modeling, which helps making predictions about what our future might hold in terms of our relationship with the environment, particularly based on our growth rate and consumption patterns. Additionally, the two concepts have contributed to the environmental debate because these theories hold supporters on one hand and critics on the other, the perspective depending mostly on whether the actors are from the Global North or the Global South.
The limits to growth proposal was brought up and popularized by a book with the same name written in the 1970s. This motion is based on a model focused on what the author identifies as mayor trends around the world: accelerating industrialization, widespread malnutrition, rapid population growth, depletion of nonrenewable sources, and deterioration of the environment. Likewise, this model takes into consideration variables that are found in the real world like pollution, population and food production. All the assumptions derived from the limits to growth representation are based on the idea that the Earth’s resources are finite, leading to the need to carry out tradeoffs. These tradeoffs become more and more significant and unresolvable it becomes depending on how limited the resource at dispute is. In the same order of ideas, there is talk about the participation of technology as a tool that is seen by some as a gateway to solving environmental problems and about the transition from growth to global equilibrium. This last concept is interesting because it is essentially a matter of willingness to achieve it.
Personally, what stood out to me the most about the concept of limits to growth was the outlook it has on the role technology plays. As mentioned before, technology is thought of as the key to finding the answer to environmental troubles. Nevertheless, the author expresses that its usage has no significant impact on the essential problem, meaning that it’s not actually helping achieve a solution. In that matter, it is stated that “technology can affect the symptoms […] without affecting the underlying causes.” I find this to be extremely relevant because of all the economic inversions that are implemented worldwide on technological advances in the environmental arena. If the answer does not lie in technology, shouldn’t governments be focusing on spending their money and efforts on what will effectively treat the root causes of environmental depletion?
On the other hand, the tragedy of the commons also makes a prediction of what our future could be like based on a set of concepts like liberty, individual interests and rationality. What the tragedy of the commons implies is that, while searching for our own benefit, we are in fact leading to our communal destruction. In this sense, it is our liberty to seek our personal interests by taking what we need from our common ground that gives rise to our path to decay. In a similar way, this is what is said to be happening with pollution, but instead of taking something form the environment, we are putting something in it that does not belong. It is further mentioned that our notion of private property strengthens and favors pollution, which at the same time is feed by population. Under this set of ideas, it is given important weight to the concept of freedom to breed, causing much debate about how the dominant States want to control population growth, particularly the Global South.
When reading the logic behind the tragedy of the commons, I could not help but think about Adam Smith’s notion about how when an individual is able to seek his own personal interest, he will be contributing the maximizing the common good. Despite the idea that this was based on an economic ideal, it carries the same reasoning in a sense. It is intriguing how two different proposals that share the same base of though (individual interests) can have such opposing outcomes (common destruction or common good). What I assume is that the result will depend on how individuals perceive their needs as individuals and as part of a community not just for the short term but for the long term. Having said that, I consider it to be important for everyone to have a sense of community and the proper education in order to make decisions that will benefit the individual without harming the community and if possible, even benefiting it as well.
References
DONELLA H. MEADOWS ET AL. 2015. "The Limits to Growth" in Green Planet Blues edited by Ken Conca and Geoffrey D. Dabelko. Pages 25-29. Boulder: Westview Press.
GARRETT HARDIN. 2015. "The Tragedy of the Commons" in Green Planet Blues edited by Ken Conca and Geoffrey D. Dabelko. Pages 38-45. Boulder: Westview Press.
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