Good News on Climate’s Biggest Unknown: What Will the Humans Do?
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(Siegfried Layda/Getty Images)
Two Happy Findings About Humans: No ‘Tragedy of the Commons,’ and ‘The Ultimatum Game’
NATURE’S EDGE NOTEBOOK
Observation, Analysis, Reflection, New Questions
By Bill Blakemore
Climate scientists around the world have long said that “the biggest unknown” as they try to predict the rate and severity of global warming is the answer to their question, “What will the humans do?”
How much and how fast will we slow and reverse the greenhouse emissions that come from burning coal, oil and gas, felling forests and plowing up land, that are now causing the rapid rise of earth’s temperature?
Amid all the bad news about that (scientists report a massive gap between what we’re planning and what needs to be done) there are two bits of good news.
The first is a discovery for which American political scientist Elinor Ostrom became, in 2009, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Economics.
She showed that the “Tragedy of the Commons” (its overuse and destruction) doesn’t happen, at least when all the people who share the commons can get together and talk about it.
In other words, people aren’t complete idiots.
She found that, when there are no internal or external forces preventing the “commoners” (who share, say, a large “commons” or pastureland in a medieval European town) from a free, open and robust discussion of how they should agree to govern and limit their use of it so it doesn’t get overgrazed and thus ruined for all, then the commons goes on thriving.
This may give some hope to those watching conversations such as those at the global climate summit this December in Durban, South Africa.
Ultimately, of course, the one commons we all use is the planet.
“The Tragedy of the Commons” is an idea presented by ecologist Garrett Hardin in an influential paper of that title published in the journal Science in 1968.
His “commons” metaphor suggested that individuals often each put as many sheep or cows as they can on the commons, which nobody owns, to benefit themselves, leading to its collapse.
Ostrom, then in her early 30s, spent the next 40 years checking out that thesis.
She examined societies of all kinds around the world and back through the ages, looking at many kinds of “commons” — from pastures to fisheries, forests to watersheds, and many others.
What she found, impressing her colleagues worldwide, was that “the tragedy of the commons” often simply does not happen.
When the people who live around and actually use the commons can converse regularly about its use, they figure it out. They compare notes and begin to set their own rules and means of monitoring compliance.
Thus they may avoid pasture collapse and have a village life regular and comfortable enough so they can plan time for holidays, enjoy a good harvest feast together with their families, friends and sweethearts, start new families for a next generation, and (having secured enough food for all) even have reasonable time left over to write poetry and ponder the really daunting mysteries like the universe and existence itself.
Professor Hardin even readjusted his 1968 thesis to fit with Ostrom’s findings, acknowledging the accuracy and excellence of her work.
So, good news. People aren’t (always) idiots.
This raises an important question.
When they are idiots, what prevented them from talking it over and working out ways to save their commons?
A variety of studies to have found that, sometimes, outside parties, who may enter a commons with the aim of extracting something for their own gain, find ways to silence or divide local users of the commons in order to prevent their governance or control of it.
A number of economists and political scientists (many with no guiding political party affiliation) now study how multi-national petroleum and gas companies, as well as large timber and agricultural business, may tend to silence or divide local people who live where these resources may be found, extracted and carted away to distant markets.
This is where two kinds of “commons” clash.
Two Kinds of Commons — Local and Global
For example, the possible destruction of a forest or vast field of oil-rich tar-sands can contribute to the disruption of the heat balance of the all-enveloping commons of the planet’s air and of the acidity of its oceans, simply because such destruction puts extra CO2 in the air.
But, suggests Ostrom, this catastrophic outcome does not need to happen if all the people who share this planetary commons can talk about it freely and vigorously — as they try to do at such conferences as global UN climate summits and other venues.
In his book, “The Fate of Nature: Rediscovering our ability to rescue the earth,” Alaskan journalist Charles Wohlforth, who reported for many years on the physical and social aftermath of the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, describes how Ostrom’s good news about the human race is always at play, ready to be nurtured amid all the bad news about the human race.
Here’s a brief video interview with Wohlforth about that.
It is conducted, by the way, across the street from our ABC News offices in New York’s Central Park, another commons recently saved from urban blight (which had ruined it by the 1970s), when the people who live around the park and use it most often took over its governance, forming The Central Park Conservancy.
The Tragedy of the Commons Doesn’t Happen when people can talk – Charles Wohlforth and Nobel Prize Winner Elinor Ostrom
Yet More Good News About Humans: The Amazing ‘Ultimatum Game’
And just why do human manage to cooperate when they can freely discuss the use of a commons?
Listen to Wohlforth describe the amazing “Ultimatum Game,” which has been tested on people in many cultures around the world.
It’s enough to make you think that maybe, just maybe, humanity isn’t all bad:
Humanity’s Amazing “Ultimatum Game”:
Realistic Hope on a Warming Planet and the other “Commons” in Nature
Solar Eclipse Seen Only by Satellite 
TechBytes (02.22.12) 
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At least people aren’t COMPLETE idiots. Or perhaps it is just that not ALL people are idiots. But that doesn’t mean we are going to be able to solve the problem, given the number of people who won’t even acknowledge that there IS a problem.
Posted by: jock59801 | November 27, 2011, 5:38 pm 5:38 pm
I discovered Hardin while reading my high schooler’s required reading for AP Environmental Science. He was a man ahead of his time, and * sigh* if people had listened to him (heck, if people paid attention today!), our planet would be better off. He was criticized by the right for his views on abortion and freedom to choose to end one’s life (which he and his wife did do); and by the left, for his views on immigration. The author doesn’t mention one of Hardin’s major views: over-population. Excuse the cut-and-paste of some of his quotes, but they are quite thought-provoking. “A finite world can support only a finite population . . . Having accepted disease control, the people [of poor countries] must now accept population control . . . God’s primary gift was the process of natural selection . . . In a world of limits, prosperity can be maintained only if population is contained . . . Population does not grow globally; it grows very locally, at each spot occupied by a fertile woman . . . Tragedy is the price of freedom in the commons. In other words, in a crowded world survival requires that some freedom be given up . . . We summarize the situation by saying: ‘There is a shortage of food.’ Why don’t we say, ‘There is a longage of people’?” He was bold in addressing taboo subjects, but major problems usually require sticky solutions. Sweeping taboo subjects under the rug, we solve nothing. While we can’t have a nanny-state, we also can’t allow anyone to do whatever they want and expect everyone else to suffer because of it. Assistance for poor countries should include not just disease control and food, but birth control as well. We can’t expect that we alone can control global warming when poor countries ignore their unchecked populations and more developed nations ignore environmental impacts. Ultimately, more people around for longer lives in a finite world will not pencil out.
Posted by: LagunaTriMom | November 27, 2011, 5:49 pm 5:49 pm
To have this common idea you can’t have or greedy rich powerful people or big corporations involved, as they are not living locally, their only concern is short-term profit, not the sustainability of the land.
Posted by: Librarian53 | November 27, 2011, 6:01 pm 6:01 pm
Wonderful interview with a lot of food for thought. I will consider buying his book from my local bookstore.
Posted by: Lydia | November 27, 2011, 6:07 pm 6:07 pm
People are not idiots. That’s why special interests that may be hurt by actions improving the collective good work so hard to corrupt the legislative process. Remember the deregulation that let to the economic meltdown?
Posted by: sameagain | November 27, 2011, 6:13 pm 6:13 pm
“Global Warming” is a short-term view of data to produce a “desired result” by people who want “change” in the world!! —— It would be like taking ONE WEEK of the stock market… calling it “normal”… and projecting the reat of the decade based on that one week!!! —– It is naive, simplistic, and basically LYING to promote your agenda!!! —– This kind of short-term view completely IGNORES the larger view… like the “Great Medieval Warm Period” (800 to 1300), the “Little Ice Age” (1500 to 1850), and smaller trends like a cooling period between 1880 and 1915… a warming period from 1915 to 1945… a cooling period between 1945 and 1977!! — These “scientists” are just viewing the warming period from 1977 to 1998!!!! —– FACT — “Climate change” is a 100% CERTAINTY… but this “global warming movement” is manufactured!!!
Posted by: TheLoyalOpposition | November 27, 2011, 6:25 pm 6:25 pm
Back in the early 1970′s, so-called over-population was a topic that got social attention. Perhaps this is why I believe that the core, root cause of most of the world’s problems in today’s news is the FACT that the earth’s population has grown to unsustainable levels. In nature, some mechanism is ALWAYS brought to bear on exploding populations to trim them back to sustainable levels. Mankind has successfully eliminated many that would have already trimmed us back. What the mechanism for correcting human population will be is unknown, but Mother Nature WILL provide one, to be sure! Climate change is as likely as pandemic to be that mechanism…both nature’s way of telling you…
Posted by: J S O'Brien | November 27, 2011, 7:06 pm 7:06 pm
Seriously, people ARE idiots. Some started saying things about climate change 50 years ago and now we are so far behind the curve that there is no way to stop it.
Posted by: oldwolf49 | November 27, 2011, 10:13 pm 10:13 pm
“Tragedy of the Commons” (its overuse and destruction) doesn’t happen, at least when all the people who share the commons can get together and talk about it.”—-by ‘talking’ the author means talking AND LISTENING and the right wing has ZERO listening/comprehension skills and this is just fact. how many times do they bark the same nonsense, unencumbered by the thought process. For instance “climate goes in cycles” “There have been other warm/cold trends in the history of the earth”…to which the captain obvious reply is…uhhhh yeah, when a massive meteor hit the earth, or when a HUGE volcano spewed ash so thick the sun light was blocked out, etc. EACH mass extinction/ice age was accompanied by a HUGE cataclysmic event. And this has been said over and over and over and over, yet ask ANY right wingers and they just say the same old “earth is flat’ line, “There have been other ice ages….” It’s seriously like talking to a brain dead person living in a bubble. no facts, no science, permeates that bubble. Their mind is made up FIRST. Period. It’s made up. NOTHING can permeate that opinion. Least of all, facts. They have actually been studied, no kidding, and it has been proven they DO NOT change their minds even when flagrantly absolutely wrong and when presented with perfect facts supporting that conclusion. It’s mental illness level of illogical behavior.
Posted by: GrannyNosBest | November 27, 2011, 10:20 pm 10:20 pm
Umm, ok. Then why is it that the alarmists try to shut the skeptics out of the conversation? Why is it that ABC News believes that skeptical views shouldn’t be part of the free and vigorous debate? By shutting down skeptics, it sounds like ABC News is trying to promote a Tragedy of the Commons. Is that the correct take-away from this article?
Posted by: mpaul | November 27, 2011, 10:30 pm 10:30 pm
Scientific American is the PREMIER scientific publication for both scientists and lay people in this country. Google it, under the title “The Physical Science behind Climate Change”. READ IT. THE WHOLE THING. oh boo hoo. That’s at least 6 or 7 pages!!!!! uh yeah. IT is. Get off your lazy ARSE AND READ IT!! THEN come into the discussion. you CANNOT say you have doubts when you take no time to actually LISTEN to the science!!!! That’s such a stupid position! “gee, I doubt something I know nothing about.” No, really???? ya think?
Posted by: GrannyNosBest | November 27, 2011, 10:47 pm 10:47 pm
“Global Warming” is a short-term view of data –NOT EVEN CLOSE!!!! READ the article I told you how to find it. YOu know NOTHING about the data that supports climate change. NOT A THING. you form an opinion based on crap you just made up. It’s not hard to not that much of a stretch to be skeptical of something you know NOTHING about, and have taken NO TIME to read about. You’re COMPLETELY IGNORANT of the science behind climate change. A good 7 page article to outline the science behind climate change. Read it. THEN come to the table and try to make some sense based on something intelligent and relevant to the topic. Your personal fiction to what you imagine scientists do is not relevant.
Posted by: GrannyNosBest | November 27, 2011, 10:56 pm 10:56 pm
. Then why is it that the alarmists try to shut the skeptics out of the conversation? —funny, I’ve posted three posts that listed VERY specific ways that climate change is measured, analyzed, theorized and THOSE posts have been deleted while fluff from people who have NO LOGIC i ntheir ‘I dont believe it” along with some pure fiction, like “They use short term data” is allowed to stay. No, actually, it seems like ABC just made this list of links support the illogical skeptics and threw out the logical scientific arguments. way to go ABC. Supporting laziness and ignorance. Lovely.
Posted by: GrannyNosBest | November 27, 2011, 10:58 pm 10:58 pm
the “Little Ice Age” (1500 to 1850),—caused by a MASSIVE volcano, that spewed so much ash in the air that ash has been found in bubbles trapped in ancient ice core drilling samples and corroborated with canyon samples dating back to the same time period. EVERY massive climate change event has had a trigger, a reason, a massive cataclysmic event. A huge meteor hitting the earth, or a huge huge volcano that blackened the skies. We have measured ,real science, ancient air from today to millions and millions of years ago. Spectrometers have measured carbon monoxide, methane, nitrous oxide, halocarbons etc. we’ve studied what they do to the atmosphere. We can measure how these gases have been held steady over MILLIONS of years, until…the industrial revolution, where they start to go up up up, and the slope of their increase can be used to calculate how much of them will be in the atmosphere in 50 years, 100 year, 300 years. There’s actual real science behind this. Learn it. Then join the conversation. Posting silly things like this, just shows that you’re not convinced of a theory that you’ve taken zero time to learn about. yeah. People tend to not believe in things they dont take any time to learn about.
Posted by: GrannyNosBest | November 27, 2011, 11:04 pm 11:04 pm
“In other words, people aren’t complete idiots” —- Not completely, but pretty close.
“She showed that the “Tragedy of the Commons” (its overuse and destruction) doesn’t happen, at least when all the people who share the commons can get together and talk about it.”
That’s the idiotic part. They’re talking about the wrong things but again, pretty close. It’s the “overuse” they won’t recognize. As the human population of Earth grows so will pollution levels and depletion of resources. Nothing can be done to change that simple truth. People pollute. More people = more pollution.
Invent all the ‘green energy’ and flower power, feel good projects you want to but as long as human population increases, so will pollution levels and depletion of resources. Just how it is.
Sooner or later the population of the villiage will grow beyond the ability of the commons to support them. What then?
Posted by: oonogil | November 28, 2011, 1:54 am 1:54 am
You know the problem with this whole topic? It is politicized.
Posted by: duke | November 28, 2011, 7:55 am 7:55 am
Al Gore on his death bed; “Trust me, it’s not here yet, but it’s coming”. All the while he won’t give up that lead mine.
Posted by: newcountryman | November 28, 2011, 8:21 am 8:21 am
You know the deniers are at their wits end when their last gasp is “Al Gore”.
Posted by: WilliamDawesJr. | November 28, 2011, 9:11 am 9:11 am
…and the 10,000 professional members of the American Meteorological Society were all totally ignorant of the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age when they issued their statement that “In recent decades, humans have increasingly affected local, regional, and global climate…Direct human impact is through changes in the concentration of certain trace gases such as carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and water vapor, known collectively as greenhouse gases…There will be inevitable climate changes from the greenhouse gases already added to the Earth system. Their effect is delayed several decades because the thermal inertia of the oceans ensures that the warming lags behind the driving forcing.”
Posted by: WilliamDawesJr. | November 28, 2011, 9:46 am 9:46 am
In the USA the one thing from the RIGHT that transends many things that would be best for the GREATER good is GREED!!! Once we shut the right up regarding much NEEDED regulations on what the greedy would do just to save money rather than save the planet, things WILL be better for ALL concerned!!! One day our decendants will either thank us or blame us for the state WE left them in and I pray it will be the latter.
Posted by: demNme5 | November 28, 2011, 12:29 pm 12:29 pm
>”In other words, people aren’t complete idiots.”
Now as for blithering idiots all we have to do is read the newspaper, watch the news, read comments on the web … Far too many people piss and moan about Congress not reading the bills they pass and yet these same dolts don’t read simple English posts!
Posted by: djconklin | November 28, 2011, 1:25 pm 1:25 pm
The leaked emails prove the global warming scientists to be liars. Documented proof they are full of it and some of you fools still dance to the tune. Dance little puppets dance.
Posted by: Gepetto | November 28, 2011, 2:57 pm 2:57 pm
The ‘leaked’ emails prove no such thing. In the first place the emails (thousands of them) were STOLEN from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University by THIEVES with a political agenda. Immediately the screaming started from the deniers that these emails proved something and that “there ought to be an investigation”. That was three years ago and there has been an investigation. In fact there have been at least SEVEN of them by scientific, political, and independent bodies in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Not a one has found any member of the CRU guilty of ANYTHING. In fact most of those investigation have taken pains to state that there was NO BASIS TO THE CHARGES IN THE FIRST PLACE. The latest investigation was funded in large part by the climate change denying billionaires, the Koch brothers. They selected the well known climate change skeptic, Dr. Richard Muller, to head up their little $600,000 effort to disprove the work of CRU once and for all. Dr.Muller examined 1,600,000,000 (that’s 1.6 BILLION) data points used by the CRU. He examined their methods, and their conclusions. HIS result: “Global Warming is real.” Not only that, but he admitted that the evidence for Global Warming had been there all along and that the thousands of climatologists that had been stating as much were right, AND HAD BEEN RIGHT FOR DECADES. Does the fact that at least half a dozen independent investigations into ‘Climategate’ have proven that there is no evidence of data manipulation – and that there never was any – mean anything to the deniers? Does the fact that one of their own scientists, funded by their own financial backers, has found no evidence of fraud mean anything to the deniers? Does the fact that these reports, THAT THEY DEMANDED, have been available to them for years mean anything to the deniers? Have they read them? Can they produce ANY evidence for their fraudulent and disproven claims? NO! Will they ever stop making their silly lying claims? NO!
Posted by: WilliamDawesJr. | November 28, 2011, 3:53 pm 3:53 pm
THELOYALOPPOSITION: ““Global Warming” is a short-term view of data to produce a “desired result” by people who want “change” in the world!! —— It would be like taking ONE WEEK of the stock market… calling it “normal”… and projecting the reat of the decade based on that one week!!! —– It is naive, simplistic, and basically LYING to promote your agenda!!!” – - – No, it would be more like considering 100-150 years of stock market data. If anyone is LYING here to promote an agenda it is THELOYALOPPOSITION because characterizing the GW issue/theory as only a short-term view of data is grossly and patently false. There are studies that consider data going back HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS TO MILLIONS of years. Some use data going back TENS OF MILLIONS of years. That is hardly limiting the data to a “short-term” view, especially when considering the reality that going back too far – as in more than a few million years or before the ice caps formed and the now normal cycle of ice ages began is basically pointless relative to what is currently possible. Going back too far means some influences would then be too different from the way things are now. Things were so different then tha comparisons to now are pointless. For example, consider continental drift. Going back too far means the positions of the continents would be different enough to effect the deep ocean current patterns – or even their very existence. That difference alone makes it meaningless to try and make comparisons to some of the data that far back and the same kind of data now. While it is fascinating to consider the data available from millions to hundreds of millions ago is indeed fascinating, it is also irrelevant when we go too far back because some key influences were just too different or even nonexistent from the way things are now.
Posted by: B-K KnightRider | November 28, 2011, 5:32 pm 5:32 pm