week 4 reply

respond to the question in red writing. Melissa is the instructors. Kamie is me
week 4
Kamie Quijano (AC1209552) (Mar 30, 2015 12:20 AM) – Read by: 2 Reply
The Tragedy of the Commons,” can be defined as a point when human recognizes overuse of resources that occurs when everyone exploits the limited resources that the human beings share. Such resources include groundwater, fishing, and global warming to mention a few.  Making a decision concerning those resources is quite hard especially if you are to favor the current users. In such instances, stakeholders have to sacrifice their current needs for the sake of use utilization of the resource. This is the reason behind privatization and regulation of some resources for environmental sustainability.

Traffic Congestion
The public roads can be used to describe an exemplary example of what people share for utilitarian purposes. Everyone has his or her personal interests in mind of using the resource maximally so as to achieve his or her goals. In case we all decide to utilize the public roads for traveling purposes, then apparently jams will develop and it will slow down the traffic movement. In the end, the air will be filled with pollutants caused by the idling fleet that poses a danger to the natural ecosystem. The solution is to use cars that use gas instead of oil (Gardiner, 2001).

Groundwater in Los Angeles
Given that the landowners who live in Los Angeles have the right use water from wells for doing farming and other things. Since the groundwater is part of the regional aquifer, then landowners have the right to fetch water from the pool. With the growth of the city in 1930s and 1940s, water consumption that was drawn increased significantly to meet the recurrent needs and wants of the growing population. Eventually, inhabitants drew lots of water, and this reached a level that the aquifer became vulnerable to saltwater due to intrusion from the Pacific Ocean. Residents faced water shortages after the destruction of the aquifer. The ultimate solution to these was to form a voluntary organization to plan and manage the water usage in order to conserve the resource for future generations (Gardiner, 2001).

References
Gardiner, S. M. (2001). The real tragedy of the commons. Philosophy & public affairs, 30(4), 387-416.

New! Re: week 4
Melissa Hickman (Apr 2, 2015 11:36 PM) – Read by: 1  Reply
Nice job.  Can the tragedy of the commons results be averted or avoided?

Thoughts, team?
Dr.Hickman