William Forster Llyod's The Tragedy Of Commons

"1. Nature must be seen as capital. It is a set of economic assets that can become a source of profit or advantage, a means to make more wealth. Trees, wildlife, minerals, water, and the soil are all commodities that can either be developed or carried as they are to the marketplace. A business culture attaches no other values to nature than this; the nonhuman world is desanctified and demystified as a consequence. Its functional interdependencies are also discounted in the economic calculus.

Aldo Leopold’s “The Land Ethic” is an essay describing why we should not treat our land as our property. The first part of half of his essay is based on an anecdote that alludes to Odysseus returning from Troy to behead his slaves. His comparison there is that as once it was alright to treat people as property, it is now just fine to do the same thing to your land. Additionally, as ethics of the treatment of people changed as with the ethics of land treatment. He argues that we should treat our land with care and respect as we now treat one another, for we will be ushering a new era of change the is all for the better.

2015: A promising year, full of opportunities, though less than 3 months away from coming to a close. Not more than 100 years ago, things were not the same as they exist now. Major problems were faced in eras such as the Progressive Era. Such problems that people faced back then were women’s suffrage, child labor, and deforestation. If I was born in the generation where I had where to choose where to place $1,000,000 to certain cause, I would give it to the three things I have stated.

Deforestation affects majority of the population, including people and animals, across the nation and in my community.

Upton Sinclair was born in late September of 1878 in Baltimore, Maryland. His family relocated to New York City when he was ten years old. At the age of twenty, after completing his schooling, he decided to become a serious novelist. In 1904 Sinclair was sent to Chicago to write an exposé on the mistreatment of workers in the meatpacking industry. He spent several weeks undercover gathering the research that greatly contributed to The Jungle.

Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire deals with what Cavanaugh refers to as “the basic matters of economic life”, which is the free market, consumerism, globalization, and scarcity, as he aims to change the reader’s views on each of these topics. Cavanaugh also gives his argument both for and against each of these matters, which are often characterized by stories or comparisons which make his arguments and points a little easier to understand and a little clearer. Cavanaugh also answers few questions such as, are we for or against the free market? Should we not think of ourselves as a consumer? Are we for or againt globalization? How do we live in a world of scarce resources? And finally, when is a market free? (Loc.8 and 14). Cavanaugh anwers and addresses these issues within the “four brief chapters” of his book.

Injustices, tragedies, and unfortunate circumstances have plagued humankind for all of existence. Many of these problems have arisen from the society of man, and could not be found in nature. The hatred, selfishness, prejudice, and maliciousness seen in so many injustices man created unnecessarily, as well as all the suffering it causes does not need to exist. If an individual witnesses a crime or injustice occurring, it is their responsibility to defend the weak and fight for whatever is morally right, even at the cost of themselves.

The Brazilian Amazon is home to 40% of the world’s tropical rainforest. Incidentally, it also has the world’s fastest rate of deforestation. Tropical Rainforests around the world are lost at the rate of one acre per second with the average rate of Brazilian Amazon being such that 2 million hectares of forest land are cleared every year. There are multiple causes for this extensive rate of deforestation and this paper will address four such causes namely (1) rapid population growth, (2) industrial logging and mining, (3) changing spatial patterns of deforestation, and (4) wildfires. Moreover, there are several Brazilian state policies that encourage deforestation practices of which this paper will look at five key aspects – (1) taxes on agricultural income, (2) rules of land allocation, (3) land taxes, and (4) tax credit schemes and subsidized credits. However, despite rapid deforestation there have been long drawn efforts made by the domestic and global actors for forest conservation and curbing practices of deforestation. This has led to a tussle between pro-development and pro-environment policy networks trying to influence policies which directly affect the Amazon Rainforest and its inhabitants. The paper will also analyze 4 stages in the history of Brazil from 1960s to now in light of such policy networks.

The Cambridge dictionary definition of geography is “the study of the systems and processes involved in the world 's weather, mountains, seas, lakes, etc. and of the ways in which countries and people organize life within an area”. The idea of capitalism focuses on the human side of geography due to capitalism affecting peoples lives and socially, how the world develops. Capitalism is “an economic, political, and social system in which property, business, and industry are privately owned, directed towards making the greatest possible profits for successful organizations and people”, as defined in the Cambridge dictionary. Despite some criticisms towards capitalism, it is seen as the most successful economic strategy for a country compared to

In John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, Locke focuses on the definition and function of property in chapter four. Locke wants to argue that man can attain private property in several ways (Socrates 6 sect. 25). Locke believed that there are two arguments for the acquisition of private property in a state of nature. First the labor-mixing argument and the value-adding argument (Locke 7 sect. 27). His argument states that if one mixes one’s labor with unknown land or resources, one then owns the unowned land or resources (Locke 7 sect. 27). However, this statement is not entirely true, if one mixes what one owns with what one does not own, it does not create self-ownership. Locke’s state of nature is then tainted and no longer includes equality and commonality among mankind.

When comparing the two different accounts of English philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke we must take into consideration a number of things such as the age in which they lived and the time in which they produced their philosophical writings. We will however find out that these two philosophers actually have a couple of things in which agree on even though most of their opinions clash. On one side we have Thomas Hobbes who lived in the time of the English Civil War (1642-1651) who provides a negative framework for his philosophical opinions in his masterpiece Leviathan and who advocates for philosophical absolutism . On the other side we have John Locke, living during the glorious revolution (1688-1689) he presents a positive attitude in his book The Second Treatise of Government and advocates for philosophical and biblical constitutionalism.

In “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor” (1974), Hardin debates whether rich countries should provide aid to poor countries through food supplies or immigration. Garrett Hardin was a renowned Americans philosopher received his PhD in microbiology from Stanford University. He has written several books and articles that mainly focus on ecology, and throughout his life, has constantly forewarned the world about the risks of overpopulation. Due to his deep understanding of ecology, and due to the intensive research the author has done on this particular topic, Hardin is credible to write an article about this topic. Moreover, Hardin’s main purpose in writing this piece is to persuade the readers, the population of the rich countries and their governments, not to help the poorer countries. Nevertheless, Hardin does not succeed in persuading the readers of his viewpoints, as Hardin fails to provide enough evidence to support his controversial arguments.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, approximately twenty-seven soccer fields worth of trees are cut down per minute (Hook). Deforestation is a major environmental problem occurring all over the world. Trees are being cut down constantly for a number of reasons, which is greatly harming the environment. Deforestation is causing more and more problems in the world such as, global warming and loss of habitat. Trees are being cut down at a very fast rate and we need to do something about it before it is too late.

Kofi Annan, once the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, stated, “If globalization is to succeed, it must succeed for poor and rich alike. It must deliver rights no less than riches. It must provide social justice and equity no less than economic prosperity and enhanced communication” (Kofi Annan). Persistently, the world is reminded of the advantages of globalization and how history could have been shaped without its existence. In spite of the declarations that defend the international movement enhancing the ideology of an interconnected planet, the downsides of globalization cannot be ignored. Economically, they include the pressure factories receive from higher authorities that result in labor abuses and violations, the competition

Ever since Garrett Hardin’s publishing of the Tragedy of Commons in 1968, it has been used extensively to understand environmental problems. The tragedy of the commons can be defined as when individuals acting in rational self interest seek to maximize the benefit of Earth’s resources as fast as they can and in doing so, lack an incentive to conserve and regulate these resources (Olive, 2016). This concept can be seen in the 2014 film Damnation by Travis Rummel and Ben Knight. Below, it is shown how the dams in the movie exemplify key characteristics of a commons, why problems of the dams are hard to overcome and how these problems can be solved. By examining the dams shown in the film, it is evident that the problem of the dams is an accurate example of the tragedy of the commons.