Group items tagged

The ocean is one example of a common access ground. It's not exactly owned by anyone. The ocean is being explored more and more everyday. One way is through fisheries. The rapid increase in demand for fishes has led to the sudden decline of the fish populations. Take Bluefin tuna as an example. The increase in demand for tuna sushi has led to a huge depletion worldwide for the past 15 years. This has also led to an increase in price as the populations are becoming more rare. A Bluefin tuna once sold for more than £1m at a Tokyo auction. It is said that most of the tuna caught are shipped to Japan for consumption. Since the ocean has international access, coming up with regulations need to be communicated among many countries. 48 member nations of International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic came out and voted to maintain strict catch quotas. This relates to the tragedy of the common. Anyone can access the ocean and catch as much fishes as they like. They only take into account the money they can gain from catching more tunas. This shows a lack of consideration of the generation where some are only concerned about themselves. Without strict regulations, the population of tunas may become extinct in the near future.

It is a very interesting article because many people doesn´t know about the problem with the fish population. We are depleting all the oceans and we don´t think about the consequence of our acts. The problem is that we are really selfish because no one care about the future generation. We will leave them a completely depleted world (this idea is very present in the film Avatar) However it is very difficult to control the people from capturing too many or too small fishes or other animals. It is a tragedy of commons because it is the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, despite their understanding that depleting the common resource is contrary to the group's long-term best interests.

Over consumption has caused the nation of Kuwait, a country rich with fish, to have fish levels of near-depletion. Few years ago, Kuwait was abundant with fish and the fishermen gave 2 kg of fish when consumers bought only 1 kg. Near the end of the day, the fishermen would just leave the fish out for takes because there were no refrigerators to prolong the life of a caught fish. Yet, this over consumption of fish has depleted the water of fish. Several organizations and environmentalists have been trying to raise awareness for over consumption and this tragedy of the commons.

Scientists in Alberta have found evidence that oilsand operations have been sending toxins into the atmosphere for decades. Also, levels of toxins in Namur Lake have tripled since 1960. Critics have raised serious concern over the rising pollution in our atmosphere and lakes. This relates to our lesson for the week because the atmospher and lakes are common access resources. They are open to the common. These resources are becoming depleted because of the overuse of these resources.

It is a very interesting article because it is a very recent theme. In the last week I read that the soot is three times more polluting than the scientist though. It is a very good example of negative externality of production. The toxins in the atmosphere are negative externalities for third parties. The company will produce at q1 concerned in their own cost. The MSC is higher than the MPC and there is a welfare lost from Q1 to the equilibrium point. I think that commons must be protected and to achieve it the government must intervene to save the atmosphere and the lakes because it is our planet and we must save it.

This summer I've been in India, and it's one of the reasons why I found this article interesting. The humidity level in India is incredible high, you easily can feel that when you are outside of the room that has conditioner. But despite the amount of humidity, Indian nation has that huge problem with water. I didn't see Indians using water too much, that's why it seems weird to me that Indians can have scarce of water. Thus after that article I noted how often we hear about water scarcity. Last year I heard about the disturbance of ecosystem of one of the rivers (because of the producing electricity) here in Idaho. So I think it is topic that we hear everyday, but most of us hear, but don't listen. I hope this little article will draw your attention to the water, as it did to me, and you will begin to think and care about scarcity of not only water, but scarce of other things that are habitual for us, that we don't even think that they might be finite.