Tragedy of the Commons

Thinking in syllable-squares,
recalling ecologist Garrett Hardin (1915-2003)
and his 1968 wisdom, "Tragedy of the Commons."

Maximum               
may not be                   
optimum.

                                                                                  The greatest
                                                                                  danger is
                                                                                  feeling safe.

                                There is no
                                 place to throw
                                 that's away.

Can someone's
unwilling
mind be changed?
                                                            Talk about
                                                            climate change--  
                                                            more hot air!  

     Once upon a time I had hope.  The earth could be salvaged by recycling and by learning not to want too much. And by adopting children.  
     Mathematicians and other scholars may encounter the Tragedy of the Commons via game theory and the Prisoner's Dilemma -- an important decision model in which what is immediately optimal for an individual is not best for a group to which she belongs.  Much has been written about this type of decision -- including both situations with a single decision and situations with a series of such decisions.

     More square views of climate concern are available in these postings:  20 October 2010, 27 October 2010, 14 April 2013 -- and on 26 August 2011 a poetry-with-music expression of concern for 350 parts per million, the "safe upper limit" for CO₂ in our atmosphere (From the website CO2 Now the February 2014 average value (at Mauna Loa observatory) was 398.03.)