Group items tagged

Diwali is a big holiday in India, and according to a recently released study, last year experienced the highest noise pollution levels recorded on the day. Noise pollution is a negative externality for the production of fireworks and such products. The noise pollution is damaging to society because it detrimental to hearing, so more of society will have to pay for hearing aids or surgery. Also, the government will have to make the country more accessible to the hearing impaired.

This article shows how the air in China is getting more polluted every year, and the population has only two choice: stay home or go around with a mask, hoping not to have any breathing problems. This connects with tragedy of the commons, since air is a common and people pollute it by using cars without thinking about the consequences. China is so populated, that the large use of cars is highly polluting the streets. In addition, there are industries that pollute and nothing is being done because air is a common.

This article talks about the pollution of the water, and how most counties' water resources are getting more and more public since "one cannot own water". This is exactly what tragedy of the commons is. Since no one owns the water, people can do whatever they want there, without further (or a lot of) consequences. Also, it makes it harder for the government to regulate the resource in case of crisis.

These days, with an economy recovering from a slight collapse and people looking to alternatives to gasoline and coal, a shortage of oil is not very good for the fossil fuels industry. Yesterday, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries announced that oil prices would remain stable, even in these times of uncertainty. With all the negatives of oil (the pollution, the wars it has caused, the danger it can put workers at to obtain, etc.) demand has started to decrease. But, petrol suppliers can't just increase their prices like the supply demand curves might predict because they don't want to risk scaring the remaining consumers into thinking the price of oil will only increase as more of it is used up. This has left OPEC and all of it's members in a bit of a pickle.

This article talks about the fire in a fire station in Scotland. The roof collapsed and there was a lot of smoke. The fire fighter are working to stop the fire that keeps on going on. This article is an example of negative externality since not only the place got destroyed, but the train station had to be closed since it was close by. Therefore, there is going to be problems with trains, and people won't be able to travel (less demand for trains, less profit for the society). In addition, the smoke is very bad for the environment, causing a negative externality for the environment that will be more polluted and people have to stay at home, therefore there is a loss of profit for the population, which won't be able to go to work.

This article discusses and reflects upon how the great BP oil spill in the Mexican Gulf relates to a typical tragedy of the commons situation. The writer states that the spill was due to overexploitation, which is quite an interesting and vital perspective when discussing the oil spill and its causes.