The Commons revisited: The tragedy continues

Garrett Hardin's classic paper “Tragedy of the Commons” published in Science in 1968 struck a chord with scientists and non-scientists alike and has continued to provide a key reference point to how a number of “Commons”-related problems can be viewed. Hardin's paper will be in looked at in view of both anthropogenic global warming and peak oil and some of the solutions he posed for the “population problem” applied to the post-peak era. Possible solutions are compared with the Kyoto Protocol for global warming and the Rimini Protocol for peak oil. A carbon-indexed, universal tax on non-renewable energy resources ‘Unitax’ is mooted as a longer-term possibility to overcoming both global warming and the financing of post-peak oil problems. Alas, the process of dealing with global warming and peak oil seems to be falling into the “no technical solution” category that Hardin identified for population.