Chemical Education Today
Editorial
Revisiting the Tragedy of the Commons Hardin predicted tragedy might occur. Both collections of As the official organ of the American Association for articles make excellent reading for students and teachers the Advancement of Science, Science provides a broader alike. overview of science and technology than almost any other To say that many problems cannot be solved by science journal. Consequently it often publishes articles that go far and technology alone is not to say that science and technolbeyond any single discipline and even beyond science itself. ogy cannot play a major role in solving such problems. One such article that was particularly insightful, challengRather it implies that sciing, and provocative was “The Tragedy of the Mitigating many of the world’s most pressing problems entists and engineers will need to collaborate with Commons” (1), by social scientists, lawyers, Garrett Hardin. The arrequires interdisciplinary teams that go far beyond politicians, and many ticle amplified on an others. Maintaining efidea proposed several scientific and engineering disciplines, and our students fective communication years earlier by Wiesner among groups with such and York (2): there are should be preparing to contribute to such teams diverse approaches to the many problems that canworld requires major efnot be solved solely by forts on the part of all. An example is given by the last paper the application of science and technology. Hardin went on in the Tragedy of the Commons series (4). Oliver Houck of to propose that many environmental problems and the the Tulane Law School describes vividly the difficulty of approblem of increasing population fall within the no-technicalplying science to the problem of reducing contamination of solution class. air and water. As scientists, we approach the problem by setHardin illustrated his fundamental argument by deting concentration standards that could be checked by chemiscribing people who herd animals in a common pasture. cal analysis and enforced by locating sources of contamination Adding another animal to the pasture clearly benefits the and causing them to cease contaminating. As Houck points animal’s owner by the full value of the animal; however, the out, because appropriate concentrations differ for each use, negative component of such an addition, increased grazing such as drinking, swimming, or maintaining an ecosystem, of a limited resource, is spread over all herders. Since only setting standards quickly exceeds the bounds of science and a small fraction of the negative component accrues to the becomes political. Another set of issues arises when extrapoperson adding the animal, a strictly scientific analysis says lating from studies of toxicity in animals to toxicity in huthat each herder should seek to add as many animals as posmans, where scientific consensus is difficult to achieve. As a sible. But this leads to overgrazing the pasture, which deresult, even good environmental laws often achieve only 50% stroys the resource for all. Hardin used the word “tragedy” compliance. to mean inevitable development of a system toward an unTo be prepared to deal with problems such as these, desired result. The potential for tragedy arises when people students should be learning to collaborate even more broadly benefit individually from use of a shared resource whose than they now do as members of interdisciplinary graduate depletion affects everyone, and when the population using research programs. Mitigating many of the world’s most pressthe resource becomes large enough to endanger the viabiling problems requires interdisciplinary teams that go far beity of the resource. Pollution of the air, water, or land, reyond scientific and engineering disciplines, and our students moval of habitat required by plants or animals, depletion should be preparing to contribute to such teams and learnof mineral resources, and many other environmental probing how to do so. How best to structure a curriculum to lems fall within this general category. Hardin argued furachieve this goal is far from obvious, but it behooves us to ther that increasing population was the driver of all tragedies make the attempt. of the commons, and that population could only be controlled by what he termed, “mutual coercion mutually agreed upon”. In the December 12, 2003 issue of Science, one day short of 35 years after publication of “The Tragedy of the Literature Cited Commons”, a special section included nine articles related to Hardin’s landmark paper. In addition, in the issues from 1. Hardin, Garrett. Science 1968, 162, 1243–1248. November 14 through December 5, Science provided a “State 2. Wiesner, J. B.; York, H. F. Sci. Amer. 1964, 211(4), 27. of the Planet” series—a comprehensive overview of the issues 3. To see all papers in the “Tragedy of the Commons” series facing Planet Earth over the next 50 years (3). Articles and the “State of the Planet” series, go to the Web site http:// discussed population, biodiversity, soils and food security, www.sciencemag.org/sciext/sotp/ (accessed Mar 2004). This page fisheries, freshwater resources, energy resources, air quality, also includes links to other Web sites that provide additional and global climate change—just the sort of issues where information.
www.JCE.DivCHED.org
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Vol. 81 No. 5 May 2004
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Journal of Chemical Education
615
