Mismanaged Metaphors: Climate Change and the Metaphor of the Commons

Mismanaged Metaphors: Climate Change and the Concept of the Commons

Keywords: climate change, communication, global warming, commons, Hardin

Garret Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” metaphor is not a good one for climate change, steering discourse and activism into theoretical and strategic dead-ends. Given that there are different kinds of environmental problems (selective changes, resource overuse, and pollution) the root problem of the tragedy of the commons metaphor is that it mistakes what is more properly a pollution problem for a resource overuse problem. In the case of climate change,using metaphors like “climate commons,” “atmospheric sink,” and “consumption”(of resources) lead us into (five) unhelpful ways of thinking, according to which this article is divided, namely: 1. The coupling climate change with a concern about “population,” 2. The distraction of focus by interweaving the topic with multiple other environmental problems, 3. The portraying of GHG pollution as a resource (the ability of the atmosphere to “sink” CO2) and blinding us to the needto develop new, non-polluting energy technologies, 4. The insistence on individual responsibility and personal changes, 5. The overlooking of the fact that the consequences of greenhouse gas pollutants, like CO2, are removed fromthe activities of creating them and their benefits. Clearer and more effective climate change communication links the heat-trapping gases to their main industrial causes and primary human effects.

Global warming is one of the deadliest environmental

problems that we face, but it nevertheless is only one of

many.1 For the sake of effective activism, it is best to

focus on it alone and not confuse it with other problems or

insist that the solutions we offer to climate change must

work for other problems as well. In order to more clearly

focus on climate change, it helps to distinguish it from

other environmental problems. We might think of this move as

1 I use “global warming” and “climate change” interchangeably. Schuldt et. al. found that Americans are more likely to agree that “climate change” is occurring thanthat “global warming” is occurring. The difference of opinion occurs mostly among Republicans. Furthermore, conservative think-tanks are more likely to use the term “global warming” and liberal think-tanks are more likely to use the term “climate change.” The strategy of switching to the term “climate change” in order to garner consensus is a red herring because the real disagreement is likely about whether the changes are human-caused and largely negative. Iretain the term “global warming” because it connotes anthropogenic, harmful changes. It is more emotionally engaging and, furthermore, sends a simpler scientific message. Schuldt, J.P., Konrath, S.H., & Schwarz, N. (2011).“ ‘Global Warming’ or ‘Climate Change’? Whether the planet is warming depends on question wording. Public Opinion Quarterly 75 (1) 115-124. See also Mooney, Chris, “It doesn’t matter whether you call it ‘Global Warming’ or ‘Climate Change,’” Mother Jones, May 14, 2014.

1

a conceptual dividing and conquering. Contrariwise, we might

draw analogies between global warming and other

environmental problems in order to better characterize it or

gain ideas for solutions. Still, we must evaluate the

appropriateness of these analogies.2 Metaphorical language

can greatly influence discourse but sometimes in problematic

or ineffective ways.3

Garret Hardin’s “tragedy of the commons” has been taken

as the metaphor par excellence for all environmental problems.4

That is unfortunate for a number of reasons. I will cover

five of them here. 1. Following Hardin’s pet obsession, 2 Victor, among others, has argued, for example, that a analogy with ozone depletion led policy makers into falsely assuming that a solution to global warming should be pursuedthrough international pollution limits, which would be rather easy to accomplish.3 Other philosophical concepts similarly apply to some problems more than others. The debate about human dominion or stewardship as well as conceptual analyses of the notion of “species” are not equally useful for addressing every environmental problem. “Consumption” and “waste” are helpfulmetaphors in some cases, but not others. Even the notion of “the environment” is less concrete than it appears and can lead to false assumptions, like the idea that plants and animals are more threatened than human beings are. 4 Garret Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” has been reprinted in over 100 anthologies. (“Garret Hardin” in Encyclopedia of the Earth, 2008.)

2

“population”—read as the contribution of developing

countries—is wrongly pegged as the root problem. In truth,

population growth rates and green house gas (GHG) emission

rates are negatively correlated. 2. With the adoption of

this metaphor, the presentation of the problem of climate

change becomes overly complicated, wrapped up with all

possible environmental problems, and even ontological.

(Often despair at the unavoidability of the tragedy or a

moral about values ensues). 3. Greenhouse gas pollution and

fossil fuels appear to be a “resource” rather than a problem

and attention is directed towards determining the optimal

amount of pollution, assuming a fixed need to “use” this

“resource” (i.e., emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere

and Ocean). Ignoring the fact that we have likely already

emitted more CO2 into the atmosphere than is safe, justice

theorists then debate the way that a corollary right to

pollute should be distributed. Instead, attention should be

directed at propagating forms of energy generation that do

not emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. 4. The

tragedy of the commons becomes a parable about individual

3

choice. Whatever “the commons” is taken to be, it is the

individual who chooses to do more or less of something. With

climate change, as with most pollution problems, the

relevant agents are not individual people but a particular

type of industry. Most individual activities will remain the

same with a switch to a different energy source; 5.

Similarly, the activity is not “use” but pollution, whose

harm is mostly felt outside of the causal industries. A more

simple cause and effect logic works better to explain the

problem of global warming.

This metaphor to describe climate change has largely

led us in the wrong direction in terms of being able to

effectively communicate the problem and propose solutions.

Of course, environmental theorists are not chiefly to blame

for the overall public difficulty in addressing greenhouse

gas pollution. That distinction belongs to the climate

disinformation campaign funded by fossil fuel companies.5

Nevertheless, environmental scientists and theorists are

5 Oreskes, Naomi & Conway, Erik M., Merchants of Doubt, Bloomsbury Press, 2011; Washington, Haydn & Cook, John, Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand, Routledge, 2011.

4

currently focusing on discovering the most effective

communication strategies, wracking their brains in the

attempt to sway public opinion towards the massive energy

transition that is necessary. The overall goal of this paper

is to further assist in this goal of making communication

about global warming clearer and more effective. As

environmentally committed intellectuals, we want to make

sure that our theoretical efforts are as practically helpful

as they can be, and choosing the right words and metaphors

can go a long way in influencing popular discourse.

Different Kinds of Environmental Problems

As an introductory nicety, we can class environmental

problems into three different types. First, there are

changes within and of ecosystems. There are countless

examples of plants and animals that have become extinct or

are threatened due to human intervention. In addition, we

should here class threats to geological formations such as

mountains or rock formations as a result of human behaviors

5

and choices. For example, Americans are not fond of many

plants they deem to be “weeds” including the milkweed plant

on which Monarch butterflies lay their eggs. Elimination of

the milkweed will soon lead to elimination of the monarch.

Many consider the latter to be rueful because of the natural

beauty and power of the monarch, as in its ability to

migrate over 3000 miles in its short life. We usually only

consider these changes to be problematic when they have been

initiated by humans. Similarly, we only consider these

changes to be problematic if we sufficiently value the thing

being lost—the butterflies and not the milkweeds themselves

for example.

Second, we have resource depletion problems that

include all scarce natural resources.6 Natural resources,

like the fish in the Ocean or water in a river, are

typically classed by means of a two-fold typology:

stationary/fugitive and ubiquitous/scarce.7 Nevertheless,

6 We should resist the temptation to class abstract commodities, such as labor or knowledge, as a resource,.7 Wantrup and Bishop, “Common Property,” p. 714, discussed in Godwin and Shephard “Forcing Squares, Triangles and Ellipses into a Circular Paradigm: The Use of the Commons

6

while it is easy to determine whether a resource is

stationary or whether it moves, whether or not a resource is

considered to be scarce depends on human perception. Often

the recognition of a resource as scarce is nearly sufficient

to instigate regulatory protections. We can see that these

types of problems, like overfishing or lack of water in a

drought or desert, are substantially different from the

former set of problems because here harm to humans is of

primary concern.

Third, we have pollution problems. This class of

problems is the most varied. “Pollution” is itself a

metaphor, but the term usually refers to the unintended

consequences of a certain technology. Sometimes the

consequences are less visible and more susceptible to

plausible deniability than others, but as with the other

environmental problems, there is usually some positive

Dilemma in Examining the Allocation of Common Resources” TheWestern Political Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Sep. 1979) pp. 265-277. Despite the title of the latter, Godwin and Shephard believe that with modifications, such as the propercharacterization of the type of resource, the commons metaphor can be made to fit a variety of environmental cases.

7

benefit associated with the human activity that causes the

problem. In contrast with resource overuse, this gain is

distinct from the pollution itself. Plastic trash in the

Ocean, chemical waste from textile factories, and global

warming, while being very different from each other, are

all, I argue, pollution problems. One quality of pollution

is that it tends to harm multiple types of organisms:

plants, non-human animals, and humans.8 Again, the harm in

all these cases is characteristically distinct from the

benefit gained in causing the pollution. In addition,

pollution problems tend to be the most chemically complex

and difficult to understand scientifically.9 Communicating

them requires as plain scientific explanation as possible.

Hardin’s global metaphor

8 If some “environmental” problems harm humans, we might wonder why we do not class them as social problems, alongside poverty, lack of education, etc. 9 These distinctions are not hard and fast. The main point is that there are different kinds of environmental problems.

8

The tragedy of the commons metaphor is confusing

because it takes one kind of environmental problem, the

overuse of scarce (stationary) resources, as a stand in for

all environmental problems. We might say that it falls

victim to the transitive fallacy, namely, the assumption

that because two things share one quality they also

necessarily share a third or more properties. The quality

that many environmental problems share is similar to,

although not exactly the same as, the free-rider dilemma. In

many cases, when one person engages in an act, like cutting

down a tree or burning coal, the environmental consequences

are negligible.10 The Earth is big and human actions have

little impact when they are merely performed on a small

scale. Nevertheless—and here we can see why Hardin takes

“overpopulation” to be the environmental problem par excellance

—when many people engage in the same action, the

consequences can then be felt. This summative quality of

10 Nevertheless, not all environmental problems are susceptible to this range. Pollution problems, as with nuclear pollution, for example, are more likely to be causedby a small number of people.

9

environmental problems is part, but not all, of what Hardin

means by “tragedy.”11

Nevertheless, Hardin’s metaphor of the commons is more

specific than the above observation. He paints the picture

of a field on which multiple shepherds graze their flocks.

While the field might be able to feed a certain number of

sheep, over and above that number, it will be nibbled down

to the dirt or weeds will take over instead of edible

grasses. Hardin means to suggest that overgrazing would

11 Vandermeer argues that the tragedy of the commons metaphor is essentially about the economic problem of externalization. Hardin’s description of the benefits and harms that accrue to the shepherd from deciding to add one more sheep to his flock does indeed sound like the phenomenon of externalization. Also, Hardin seems to be assuming that there are very little additional costs associated with taking care of more animals (children?!) andthat this production of wool, or what have you, is very nearthe pure-profit mode of capitalist production (not subsistence agrarian farming). While the problem of economiccost externalization must be operative in any good understanding of global warming, I will not here evaluate whether Vandermeer’s diagnosis applies to all environmental problems or is itself similarly limited in explanatory power. My task here is to rewind, not reduplicate, hasty generalizations. See Vandermeer, John, “Tragedy of the Commons: The Meaning of the Metaphor” in Science & Society, Vol. 60, No. 3, Marxism and Ecology (Fall, 1996), pp. 290-306.

10

permanently, or at least for that season, destroy the

feeding capacity of the field for all the farmers.

Many have drawn a parallel with Hardin’s metaphor and

the prisoner’s dilemma because Hardin highlights what he

takes to be the individual decision making processes of the

farmers. He insists that they will only be swayed by the

selfish desire to increase the size of their flocks. Hardin

dismisses the possibility of moral reasoning and the

effectiveness of appeals to conscience, and he believes that

the prevention of mutual destruction can only be achieved by

a governmental power.12 Indeed, rather than game theory, it

is political philosophy that Hardin most wishes to

influence. He intends his commons metaphor to imply the

opposite and refutation of Adam Smith’s invisible hand, and

he argues that “we need to reexamine our individual freedoms

to see which ones are defensible.”13

12 Hardin’s assumptions about human nature—ignoring family and tribal interdependence—and the conclusions about governmental power that follow from them are particularly Hobbesian.13 P. 1244.

11

This metaphor is attractive to theorists because it is

intellectually complex, involving both a paradox and a sort

of dialectical recursion. Hardin marvels at the fact that

what is “rational” for one shepherd is irrational for them

all. Furthermore, the desired action (grazing) puts itself out

of business. This paradox—the effect of the “remorseless

working of things”—is the second sense in which he uses the

term tragedy. In short, Hardin’s metaphor is the kind of

thing that philosophers love.

Ostrom has successfully pointed out that real common

property resources do not always result in this tragedy.14

There is little reason to think that the shepherds cannot

cooperate with one another, with or without democratic

governmental agencies, and indeed, in real life, they do.

Nevertheless, Ostrom’s commonsense research perhaps misses

the point that Hardin intends “the tragedy of the commons”

14 Ostrom, Elinor, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge University Press, 1990.

12

to be a metaphor, and it is as a metaphor that it continues

to captivate the thinking of many environmental theorists.15

Hardin’s overall argument is about population. The

shepherds are parents, the flocks are children, and the

field is all of the Earth’s resources. Overgrazing is … ?

The end of it all?16

In addition to the metaphor and the concern about

global population, Hardin’s article is also most remembered

for his disparaging stance on “technical solutions.” He

believes that environmental solutions will have to be of a

radically different order. It is not clear where one is to

draw the line between solutions that overhaul the whole

“system” and those that simply tweak it, but it is clear 15 Ostrom also uses common pool resources as a metaphor in her later work, implying that parallels can be drawn with the Ocean, the gene pool, publicly held corporations and condos. Dolsak, Nives and Elinor Ostrom, “Introdcution,” TheCommons in the New Millennium: Challenges and Adaptations, MIT Press, 2003. 16 Climate change activists are sometimes accused of being “alarmist” or using alarmist political techniques—trying to scare people into action. While the predicted effects of global warming are indeed alarming, there may exist a tendency to lapse into hyperbole similar to Hardin’s implication. Perhaps there is the temptation to find the oneenvironmental problem to end all environmental problems.

13

that Hardin intends his warning to be prophetic. Here we

have the third sense of the term “tragedy”: Oedipus cannot

avoid killing his father by moving to a different city. The

process by which we will reach our environmental demise has

already been set into motion. “The inevitableness of

destiny” can only be escaped by changing what he takes to be

our basic notion of freedom.

Hardin does not explicitly articulate the meaning of

his “tragedy of the commons” metaphor. He does not, for

example, make any explicit connection between

“overpopulation” and the environment. He concludes that all

“commons” situations must be abandoned, but if “the commons”

is to be used metaphorically, not just to refer to common

land ownership—Hardin mentions “the freedom to breed,” free

parking, noise pollution, etc.—its meaning begins to be

lost. Overgrazing of a field leads to a lack of food for the

sheep, but Hardin does not spell out the consequences

associated with any of the other “commons” problems he

mentions.

14

Climate change is not a population problem; it’s a fossil

fuel problem.

We might conclude that Hardin simply lacked the

demographic information that could have allowed him to draw

educated conclusions about population growth.17 By 1968,

Hardin had already experienced a near tripling of the world

population since the turn of the century. While this

observation must have been startling. Demographers now know

that the world population explosion was the result of

dramatically improved life expectancies. While population

17 The most troubling aspect of Hardin’s 1968 article is hisloaded notion of “population.” His proposal of taxing childbearing would not be fair to the poor, but, speaking asa biologist, he argues that all economic benefit should flowto the intelligent: “those who are biologically more fit to be the custodians of property and power should legally inherit more”(1247). Whom does he believe to be “biologically more fit”? In 1994 he co-signed an open letteris support of the conclusions advanced by Murray in his Bell Curve, namely that whites are mentally superior to the blacks (“Mainstream Science on Intelligence,” Wall Street Journal, December, 13th 1994). Hardin apparently believed that whites are more deserving of wealth and the “the freedom to breed.” Hardin himself fathered four children. Similarly, Hardin believes that the population problem only gets going in the first place because of “the welfare state” (1246).

15

growth has slowed—and stabilized in many countries—from a

2.1% increase per year in the 1960’s, which saw the highest

growth rates ever, to a 1.2% per year increase today, we now

know that poverty is the cause of high birth rates, not the

other way around, and healthy and wealthy countries have

near zero population growth rates. Furthermore, economic

development correlates with women’s education and work

rates, which also correlate with lower birth rates.

Nevertheless, there is a lag between a country pulling out

of poverty, achieving lower infant mortality rates, and the

population growth rate falling.18 Most demographers agree

that if we can tackle poverty, world population will

stabilize below 10 billion. Many countries are on track to

see this development and population stabilization, but some

regions, like Sub-Saharan Africa, are still plagued by

disease, famine, and political instability.

Nevertheless, unfortunately, following Hardin there is

a tendency to characterize all environmental problems as

18 James, Carl; Gribble, Haub, “The World at 7 Billion,” Population Bulletin, Vol. 66, No. 2, July 2011.

16

population problems, i.e., one assumes that increased

population either causes or exacerbates them. Nevertheless,

the link between population growth and global warming must

be broken for two reasons: 1. The countries with the lowest

growth rates are most responsible for global warming

because, as Diamond argues, it is lifestyle (or, we should

say, energy technology), not population, that correlates

with environmental destruction; and 2. As a country

“develops” and goes through an industrial revolution, its

population growth will decrease and, unless it also

experiences an energy revolution, its greenhouse gas

emissions will increase. We see this reverse correlation in

the case of China, whose population growth rate is about

half that of the U.S., and while China has almost four times

the population, its per capita emissions are less than one

third those of Americans.19

19 2009 levels, according to the United Nations Millenium Development Goals Indicator, accessed September 27, 2012.

17

Diamond argues that “consumption” is a larger factor in

environmental degradation than “population” is.20 Looking at

the environmental effects of lifestyle, Diamond reports that

Americans “consume” 32 times the amount of “resources” as

inhabitants of developing countries do. While Diamond, like

Hardin, explains all environmental problems as a “resource

problem,” his point is that we must uncouple our

understanding of dwindling resources, “like oil and metals,”

from any concerns about growing world population.21 While

developing countries, like India and China, dwarf the U.S.

in terms of population (1.24 billion and 1.35 billion to our

3.16 million), Diamond believes that, environmentally, it is

growing consumption rates that are the real problem. Yet, he

further points out, that it only seems fair that everyone in

the world should deserve the same level of consumption.

Therefore, he argues that the only solution is for developed20 Diamond, Jared, “What’s Your Consumption Factor” New York Times, January 2, 2008. 21 Diamond also gives the unsustainable management of fisheries and forests and examples of environmental problems. While mentioning climate change, it is clear that his analysis relies heavily on the “tragedy of the commons” model, which makes it difficult for him to explain the specifics of the science of global warming.

18

countries to limit their “consumption.” As I will argue in

the next section, actually it is not quantity, but quality,

that matters, and the metaphor of “consumption,” as with

“resource use” forces us to think merely of the former.

Nevertheless, Diamond is right that “population” is an

environmental canard.

The world population boom started in the 1950’s (or the

1920’s at the earliest) with the cures to many diseases and

the end of WWII, but global warming started with the

Industrial Revolution of the late 1700’s. In the 1860’s John

Tyndall discovered the heat-trapping potential of carbon

dioxide in an attempt to explain the newly discovered

previous ice-ages.22 Svante Arrhenius applied that idea to

carbon dioxide emissions from factories, predicting future

warming. The prediction did not worry him because he

believed it would prevent the coming ice age, for which we

are due, and bring nicer weather more conducive to

22 For simplicity’s sake, I will focus on carbon dioxide as the main greenhouse gas. It bears about half of the responsibility for global warming because of its prevalence,while the other, less prevalent gases, like methane, trap more heat.

19

agriculture (since warmer air holds more water vapor, which,

incidentally, traps more heat).23 In any case, the idea that

burning coal would warm the climate is not new, and for two

hundred years only a handful of countries—a fraction of the

world’s population—used this technology on any measurable

scale.

Whether or not developed countries can be held morally

or legally culpable for global warming, the carbon dioxide

currently warming the Earth came mostly from them. Overall,

since 1900, the U.S. has emitted almost 315 million metric

tons of CO2; China clocked in at just above 89 million.24

Despite the fact that in 1900 five times as many people

lived in China (which is only slightly smaller than then

U.S.), since then the U.S., in terms of global warming, has

been responsible for almost four times the amount of

environmental destruction. Not only is there no correlation

23 See Mason, John, “The History of Climate Science,” SkepticalScience, April 7, 2013 and Aarhenius, Svante, Worlds in the Making, 1908 (for English translation). 24 This data is from 1900-2004 and is therefore not a good total for European countries that started burning coal first. See “Cumulative CO2 emissions, 1900-2004” archived at“Datablog,” The Guardian, accessed June 10, 2014.

20

between CO2 pollution and population, the correlation is

closer to being negative.

Of course, the developing countries need to “develop,”

and at the present time, “development” requires burning coal

and oil. Once a country achieves a lower child mortality

rate, a higher level of education, and a stable food supply,

its birth rate drops. One might even say that the problem is

that population growth rates (or poverty rates) and fossil

fuel use are negatively correlated. The solution is to find a way to

make population growth rates (and poverty rates) track the

decline in fossil fuel use.25

The fear of “overpopulation” creates a strange “you

first mentality” in both the case of population and climate

change. In the first case, individuals are apt to believe

that if they restrain their own childbearing, in the absence

of universal restrictions, their own genetic race will die

out and be overtaken by the race of the over-breeders: “the

variety of the Homo contracipiens would become extinct and

25 See the UN’s Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform.

21

would be replaced by the variety of Homo progenitivus.”26

Similarly, Americans imagine that the Chinese economy is

taking over the world and any limiting of greenhouse gases

on our part, in the absence of universal regulations, would

only spell our being vanquished by them. In reality, as we

shall see after we choose to narrow our focus to the

solutions that uniquely apply to carbon dioxide pollution,

the race to develop can actually aid in the transition to a

sustainable energy economy.

Lastly, the undeniably worst consequence of the concern

about “population” is that it risks the acceptance or even

approval of mass death. Tellingly, Hardin does not tell us

that the problem with “population” is that it will lead to

mass death; instead, as with many population theorists,

initiated by Malthus, he holds out mass death as the smug “I

told you so” inevitability, or, even worse, as the natural

corrective to the humanity’s plague upon the Earth. In order

to get people to care about climate change, we need to tell

them the sheer number of people who will be killed or

26 “The Tragedy of the Commons,” p. 1246.

22

displaced by diseases, heat waves, and floods. If we cannot

clearly communicate to them that those effects are bad and

should be avoided, then climate change activism is a non-

starter.27

We have already seen that population size is only

tangentially related to most pollution problems, and, in any

case, any “solution” that involves the elimination of people

(or a fundamental joy of life) throws the baby out with the

bathwater. As those of us who have young children know

because we are worried about their future, the task is to save

the baby. An environment so ruined that we can no longer

reproduce our species is an environmental fight long lost.

“Global Environmental Commons,” Or Everything but the

Kitchen Sink

27 For example, after stating “climate change is caused by the growth of the world’s population,” Broome questions “Should we consider it a bad thing if the Earth loses some of its human population? Or would it perhaps be a good thing?” (p. 11-12). Broome, John, Climate Matters: Ethics ina Warming World, W.W. Norton & Co. 2012.

23

Climate change is a big environmental problem, but it

does not speak for all possible environmental problems.

Similarly, the best possible solution to CO2 pollution might

result in other negative environmental consequences.28

Nevertheless, those who think in terms of the “commons,”

“resources,” and “population” tend to lump all environmental

problems together, making an explanation of global warming

unnecessarily complicated and any possible solution utopian.

Lester Brown, for example, an environmentalist leader

and hero, might sometimes unwittingly overwhelm his

audience. In his 1999 book, Beyond Malthus: The Nineteen Dimensions

of the Population Challenge, co-authored with Gary Gardner and

Brian Halweil, he characterizes climate change alongside

nearly all of the environmental problems, as the result of

population growth. While Brown’s demographic understanding

of population growth is sound, the insistence that we link

our understanding of climate change to a concern about

28 The fact that the best solution to one environmental problem might yield another environmental problem is not cynicism but simple realism and helps us to further grasp the reason that there can be an overarching “environmental movement” only with some political difficulty.

24

population growth (as well as many other environmental

problems) risks obscuring the specific nature of the problem

of global warming. Indeed, while the fifth IPCC report does

cite a high confidence that some latitude regions have

already suffered lowered crop yields for some crops because

of high heat and drought, Brown’s focus on food shortages

serves as only an indirect presentation of the consequences

of global warming.29 Brown’s overall story, as told in World

On the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse, about

failed crops leading to failed states and a failed

civilization, while important, might not be the best

introduction to the specific problem of climate change.

Increasing food security for growing populations likely has

a more direct solution, like local agricultural subsidies,

than those for either climate change or population growth

would be.30

29 IPCC, “Technical Summary,” Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, p. 10 30 It is inevitable that one trend will be influenced by theprevious. Sounding the alarm about climate change was a better fit with those who had been sounding the alarm about population than it was with, say, the anti-nuclear movement.In some cases, as with Fremlin’s wacky hypothesis about “heat death,” climate change even appeared to be the missing

25

We can see this tendency on a smaller scale in Payne’s

“The Tragedy of the Commons and Climate Change.” As many

environmental theorists might be tempted to do, his listing

of environmentally problematic behaviors perhaps unwittingly

implies that the nature of these problems is so grandiose it

cannot even be fully articulated:

Building homes and fences depletes forests that

scrub CO2 from the atmosphere; driving automobiles

depletes fossil fuels and contributes to

increasing levels of CO2; watching television,

especially the new and popular plasma variety,

adds to pollution through burning of coal that

produces most of our electricity; having children

increases population and puts further demands on

farming, ranching, and fishing industries and

creates more waste that must be disposed of; and

cell phones create problems with demand for

“conflict minerals” and the disposal of

link population theorists sought. Fremlin, J.H. “How Many People Can the World Support?” New Scientist, October, 1964.

26

rechargeable batteries. In reality almost

everything humans engage in on a daily basis, and

everything associated with production, has some

negative externality associated with it.31

We can see that Payne makes use of Hardin’s law that there

will always be some unintended/negative consequence of any

action. This cynicism will not yield many practical

solutions and is likely overwhelming to his audience.

Like Brown, Payne’s suggestion is that “civilization”—

Payne at least purports to focus on the American lifestyle—

needs a complete overhaul to save itself from itself. Most

significantly, Payne has not given a clear statement about

the causes and effects of climate change. Perhaps Hardin’s

formative metaphor encourages this kind of lumping together

of environmental problems because it is taken to be a stand

in for any and all of them. Also, it is itself vague and 31 Payne, Lee, “The Tragedy of the Commons and Climate Change” in Toward a More Livable World, Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2012, p. 212. Similarly Jamieson argues that all forms of energy generation “transform nature;” Jamieson, Dale, “Energy, ethics, and the transformation of nature” in The Ethics of Global Climate Change, Denis G. Arnold (ed.), Cambridge University Press, 2011.

27

grandiose—it actually uses an environmental case as a

metaphor for a different kind of problem—and gestures toward

the need to change our values and lifestyle.

In the philosophy camp the tenor of “tragedy” is most

at home, as we can see with Gardiner’s A Perfect Moral Storm: The

Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change. He intends his model of “the

perfect storm”—the intersection of global asymmetry between

developed and developing countries, the fact that presently

living people have more power than future generations, and

the current lack of relevant ethical theories—to replace

Hardin’s metaphor as a general account of most environmental

problems, of which climate change is his main example (with

population growth at its core).32 He concludes that “we face

a looming global environmental tragedy,” and although he

states that the solutions are relatively easy, his “perfect

storm” model is an account of why they will not happen.33

32 P. 12. The appendix outlining population growth as “the core problem” starts on p. 443. Gardiner also carries on thetradition of analyzing environmental problems with game theory. 33 P. 439.

28

As we have seen, those who walk in Hardin’s footsteps

reiterate that our environmental problems are myriad,

massive, and cannot be addressed without a fundamental

change of the way humans live on Earth. They risk painting

environmental destruction as unavoidable and environmental

problems as massively complex. In reality, different

environmental problems are substantially different. If we

want to address one problem, like global warming, it is

better to focus on that one problem. Doing so will not help

fix other environmental problems, it might even exacerbate

them, as with using scarce minerals to build new energy

technologies, for example, but there is no reason to think

that we can solve all the problems with one solution.

Clear communication about climate change requires that

we state the main causes, main effects, and most effective

solutions. Lumping climate change in with other

environmental problems, to the point of making it appear

ontological in scope, takes us farther away from popular

comprehension and enacting a solution. In short, the

metaphors of “commons” and “tragedy,” as well are references

29

to “population,” have led theorists to overcomplicate the

problem of global warming.

Pollution is not a resource

Even if followers of Hardin were to have better

demographic information and better focus on the problem of

global warming, as many of them do, his metaphor would still

be a bad fit for climate change because global warming is a

pollution problem, not a resource problem. In turn, the

commons metaphor leads theorists to unwittingly assume that

the “resource” in question—often taken to be the ability of

the atmosphere to “absorb” CO2—is fixed. Aside from being

scientifically sloppy, it locks us into thinking of fossil

fuels as a resource instead of focusing on the development

of an entirely different type of energy.

Nevertheless, Hardin argues that the metaphor of the

commons works for pollution:

In a reverse way, the tragedy of the commons

reappears in problems of pollution. Here it is not

a question of taking something out of the commons,

30

but of putting something in—sewage or chemical,

radioactive, and heat wastes into water; noxious

and dangerous fumes into the air; and distracting

and unpleasant advertising signs into the line of

sight. The calculations of utility are much the

same as before. The rational man finds that his

share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into

the commons is less then the cost of purifying his

wastes before releasing them. Since this is true

for everyone, we are locked into a system of

“fouling our own nest,” so long as we behave only

as independent, rational, free-enterprisers.34

In this passage we can see the transitive fallacy most

clearly: these different environmental problems share the

quality of creating consequences that are not felt chiefly

by the agent. Additionally, being of negligible harm when

done on a small scale, their influence is felt only when

multiplied. Hardin goes on to acknowledge that large,

fugitive resources, like the air, cannot be privatized, and

34 P. 1245.

31

so solutions to these problems involve deterrent taxation or

regulation.

Strictly speaking, pollution problems do not bear the

trait of subtractability or rivalness that Ostrom outlines

as characterizing common pool resources.35 One polluter of a

river, for example, does not take away from the ability of

others to pollute that same river. She takes away from the

ability of others to drink from that river, but not to

pollute it. With pollution problems, the externalization of

the cost is more complete. Coca Cola, for example, cares

about declining well levels in India because overuse of well

water threatens their own water supply and profitability. If

a polluting factory, on the other hand, does not need to use

the clean river water, the polluting action will never put

itself out of business. Instead, the negative consequences

associated with pollution are qualitatively distinct from

the polluting action; hence they are easier to ignore.

Ironically, depicting either fossil fuels or the

atmosphere as a resource might be making the opposition’s 35 Ostrom, Gardner, Walker, 1994.

32

case for them since the current defense of the fossil fuel

industry is not to deny the reality of global warming but to

argue that we cannot live without burning fossil fuels and

therefore that the benefits outweigh the harms. (Of course,

all the while they lobby in opposition to cleaner energy

sources.) Depicting pollution as a resource locks us into

thinking that difficult limitations are our only hope; in

reality, the view itself that fossil fuel pollution is a resource is

the problem.

References to the atmosphere or Ocean as a “resource”

for pollution are ubiquitous. Nevertheless, it perhaps goes

without saying that portraying global warming or Ocean

acidification as “a resource” is perverse. Neither the

atmosphere nor the Ocean should be described as a “sink” for

carbon dioxide. The atmosphere does not “absorb” carbon

dioxide; it is made up of carbon dioxide, among other

greenhouse gases, and there is not a point at which it will

be “full.” Carbon dioxide is a heat-trapping gas at any

level of concentration. Nor does carbon dioxide fly off into

space. It can be removed from the atmosphere by being

33

converted into oxygen through photosynthesis and it can be

absorbed into the Ocean. The Ocean absorbs carbon dioxide,

but the fact that it does should not be seen as a

“resource.” 30 – 40% of all carbon dioxide emissions are

absorbed by the Ocean, raising its pH.36 Ocean acidification

threatens many marine ecosystems and it is largely

irreversible.37

Examples of portraying the atmosphere and the Ocean as

a resource for pollution correlate with an economic approach

to environmental problems. Scorse, for example, in his

introduction to environmental economics, outlines the basic

steps of first determining “the root cause of environmental

problems” (he outlines the tragedy of the commons) and then

“determining the ‘optimum’ amount of pollution.”38 This

leads him into an “Environment vs. Economy” dichotomy, with

little discussion of developing new energy technologies.

36 Caldeira, K.; Wickett, M.E., “Anthropogenic Carbon and Ocean pH,” Nature 425, 2003. 37 The Interacademy Panel, “IAP Statement on Ocean Acidification,” 2009. 38 Scorse, Jason, What Environmentalists Need to Know about Economics,Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

34

After trying to assign a monetary value to non-monetary

things, economists then ask whether or not limiting our

“use” of this “resource” is worth the harm it will prevent,

trying to measure the extent of future damage with an

appropriate “discount rate.”39

References to the atmosphere as a “common-pool

resource” often accompany cap and trade literature, and, as

we can see, the metaphor of a common resource suggests the

solution of limitations that require international

cooperation. Farrel and Morgan use the common resource

metaphor, all the while acknowledging that cap and trade

programs are “exceedingly difficult; [they require] solving

the institutional, resource allocation, and coordination

problems… [and] it is quite rare for states to have similar

39 Economists tend to believe that we do (and hence should) value future harms less than we value present harms. This presumption begs the question in favor of calculations in the mindset of the present and overlooks the fact that we also tend to undervalue money that we have spent in the past. It additionally overlooks the fact that most of what we do as humans can be described as planning and preparing for the future.

35

enough interests…”40 From a common resource model cap and

trade makes sense because one starts from the assumption

that those polluting are using a resource that at least

partially belongs to them that they therefore deserve to

use. Historically, one flaw with cap and trade policies is

that the caps are set too high, perhaps because they paint

pollution—doubly—as a resource: first as only deserving

limitation, not complete banning, and second as a profit

source in trade if the limit is met.41 On the other hand, if

we accept that the negative consequences of coal burning,

for example, outweigh the benefits or that the coal burners

do not have a right to harm other people, any cap that

allows a certain amount of carbon dioxide pollution would be

too high.

40 Farrell, Alexander E. and M. Granger Morgan, “Multilateral Emissions Trading: Heterogeneity in Domestic and International Common-Pool Resource Management” in Dolsakand Ostrom (ed), The Commons in the New Mellinium: Challenges and Adaptations, MIT Press, 2003, p. 204.41 The UNDP report suggests that cooperation between European emissions trading and the forestry management of tropical countries would be more effective. UNDP, 2007/2008 Human Development Report: Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World.

36

A parallel debate exists about the fairest allocation

of “the right to emit greenhouse gases.”42 Starting with the

assumption that fossil fuel use is a resource and/or that

the atmosphere is common property, those concerned with

international justice theorize about the way that this

resource is and should be distributed.43 This debate ignores

the fact that we have likely already emitted too much CO2

into the atmosphere.44 Additionally, it ignores the fact 42 Caney, Simon, “Climate change, energy rights, and equality” in The Ethics of Global Climate Change, Denis G. Arnold (ed.), Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 86. Caney’s account does the best job of criticizing what Sen calls “resourcism,” i.e., fetishizing fossil fuels in an account of development. Sen, Amartya, “Equality of What,” The Tanner Lecture on Human Values, delivered at Stanford University, May 22 1979. 43 Moellendorf, Darrel, “Common atmospheric ownership and equal emissions entitlements” in The Ethics of Global Climate Change, Denis G. Arnold (ed.), Cambridge University Press, 2011. One is tempted to conclude that those theorists participating in this debate see the pollution itself as a resource since something, the atmosphere, for example, is not a resource unless you can use it—we do not discuss the most fair way to divvy up moon property after all. Since there is no discussion about the distribution of breathable air, I assume that it is the ability to pollute that they characterize as the resource. 44 Scientists have identified 350 ppm as a safe level of CO2in the atmosphere, and, at the time of my writing, we are onthe cusp of 400 ppm. Hansen, James, et. al. “Target atmospheric CO2: Where should humanity aim?” in Open Atmospheric Science Journal (2008), vol. 2, pp. 217-231.

37

that setting up a developing country with a fossil fuel

based infrastructure is not likely to be helpful in the long

run, but, again, this debate lacks any reference to

renewable energy sources.

Peter Singer, in his One World, follows this same

“resource” line of thinking. He refers to “the global

atmospheric sink” and the global waste-carrying capacity,

with some nations using more than their “fair share.” The

solution then is a fair “distribution of the atmosphere’s

capacity to absorb greenhouse gases without drastic climate

change”45 by means of a global cap and trade system. Even

worse, human rights theorists sometimes debate whether or

not the “right to emit” CO2 pollution can outweigh the right

to breathe clean air since, after all, they are both

characterized by our same relationship to the atmosphere—use

of the commons.46 Again, the debate about the extent to

45 Singer, Peter, One World, Yale University Press, 2002, p. 28, 31, and 49. 46 For example: Hayward, Tim, “Human Rights versus EmissionsRights: Climate Justice and the Equitable Distribution of Ecological Space” in Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 21, Issue 4, pp. 431 – 450. Winter 2007.

38

which we deserve to pollute locks us into thinking that our

energy infrastructure is fixed.47

The resource overuse model locks us into thinking that

the only solution is to limit our use, but pollution

problems are better solved by developing new technologies.

Indeed, focusing on the development—indeed, complete

overhaul—of our energy infrastructure makes a number of

these debates obsolete.

Individual Responsibility and Corporate Recklessness

The tragedy of the commons metaphor implies that each

agent must limit the amount he or she uses of a particular

natural resource; no matter the resource, the relevant

agents are generally conceived to be individuals.

47 The idea of nature as a common resource also assumes thathumans will “use” nature. As with Hardin’s elliptical concern about population, his metaphor seems to suggest thatthe mere existence of humanity threatens harm to “nature.” Along with this understanding of “use”—a use that depletes—we have the assumed necessity of waste, with nature as a waste sink. A better model would be one of regenerative use,a cycle of use that eliminates the waste product.

39

Nevertheless, as Goodall points out, we should not falsely

conclude from the fact that sustainability is an ethical

problem that it is an individual problem.48 Indeed, most

individual activities will be unchanged by a switch to a

different energy source. Unfortunately, the misguided focus

on individual change has lost the climate movement valuable

time.

McKibben narrates the history of the U.S. climate

movement roughly in three phases.49 First, environmentalists

focused on individual choices, like biking instead of

driving, and energy efficiency, like switching out

traditional light bulbs for LEDs. Second, they began to

protest specific oil drilling sites or coal plants. Third,

they looked for ways to target the entire fossil fuel

industry, like divestment or a carbon tax. The shift towards

the last way of thinking represents progress to a more

efficient strategy. McKibben’s “Do the Math” message is that

it is the business model of the fossil fuel industry is to

48 Goodall, Chris, Sustainability, McGraw-Hill, 2012, p. 119.49 McKibben, Bill, “Fossil Fuel Resistance,” Rolling Stone, April 11, 2013.

40

burn fossil fuels and therefore warm the planet.

Furthermore, there are five times the amount of fossil fuels

in the ground that are safe to burn. Therefore, the fossil

fuel industry must be targeted.50

We hear a similar narrative from Marshall Saunders, the

founder of Citizens Climate Lobby. Shortly after going

through Al Gore’s climate speakers training and suggesting

that his audience members make personal changes at home, he

watched as Congress extended $18 billion in subsidies to

coal and oil companies.51 Hence his national organization

now trains others to lobby Congress for a carbon tax. New

research by Heede suggests this shift of blame is

appropriate, attributing two thirds of all anthropogenic

50 McKibben, Bill, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math,” Rolling Stone, July 19th, 2012. It is possible that McKibbenhimself lapses into a common resource metaphor here, implying that fossil fuels are a resource and that we simplymust determine the amount that we can use. Instead, it is better to imply that we must switch to alternative fuels now. The “trillionth tonne” idea is vulnerable to the same criticism. While the point is that time is running out, the underlying message is that we are using a valuable resource.51 Saunders, Marshall, “Founder’s Vision” on the CCL website.

41

warming to CO2 and methane emissions from a mere 90 fossil

fuel and cement companies.52

David Gershon epitomizes this first wave of climate

change activism. Understanding climate change in terms of

“resource conservation,”53 he encouraged people to focus on

changing their lives and go on a “low carbon diet”—the

metaphor with dietary choices perhaps suggests a different,

but no less deleterious, parallel with personal decision

making.54 The diet metaphor, as with cap and trade policies,

suggests that the solution is to quantitatively limit, not

to achieve complete qualitative infrastructural

transformation of the energy system. Although he writes “we

need to dramatically change the way that we use the Earth’s

natural resources,” he focuses on quantitative, not

52 Heede, Richard, “Tracing Anthropogenic carbon dioxide andmethane emissions to fossil fuel and cement producers, 1854 – 2010,” Climatic Change, January 2014, Issue 1-2, pp. 229-241. 53 Gershon, David, Social Change 2.0, High Point Press, 2009, p.261. 54 Gershon, David, Low Carbon Diet: A 30 Day Program to Lose 5000 Pounds, Empowerment Institute, 2007.

42

qualitative change, characterizing fossil fuel use as a

resource.55

To be fair, Gershon, following Al Gore, does not see

personal lifestyle change as out of sync with calls for

political changes. He argues that people can make more

effective appeals if they are already doing everything they

can personally to solve the problem. Nevertheless, this

model of change begs the question of whether of not climate

change is in fact a personal, and not an infrastructural,

problem. An analogy might be building a bridge by first

trying yourself to build the bridge before you expect the

Department of Transportation or the Army Corps of Engineers

to be sent in. The suggestion is that if people do not first

reduce their energy use, they are acting hypocritically.

Realistically, reducing energy use might be necessary in the

long term, but pragmatically speaking, from an individual

standpoint, the focus on energy efficiency competes with the

focus on investing in renewable energy sources.

55 Ibid. P. 1.

43

Additionally, without infrastructural change, personal

lifestyle changes are doomed to fail.56

The real tragedy of global warming is that engaged,

environmentally minded citizens were made to feel that

climate change was their fault and that because they used

energy did not have the right to push for political change.

At worst, activists were silenced by guilt about the “carbon

footprint” of their activism. The fossil fuel industry could

not have asked for a better gift than their would-be

enemies’ attempt to avoid hypocrisy.

Removed Consequences

Lastly, Hardin’s metaphor implies that the negative

effects of overusing the commons will be felt by all, or

that it will at least eventually make the original use

56 It is remarkable that leaders of the personal change movement, like Gershon, do not see the failure to achieve real changes are detrimental to the model. He himself, flying from speaking engagement to speaking engagement, doesnot live a “low carbon lifestyle.” See also Miller, Peter, “It Starts at Home,” National Geographic, March 2009, for an example of a failed “low carbon” lifestyle attempt that alsodoes not prompt the realization that another method of change is necessary.

44

impossible. Greenhouse gas pollution does not work that way

and assuming that it does causes us to miss some of its

important political characteristics. Not only does global

warming make fossil fuel exploration easier, it is

characterized by the extreme inequality between those who

cause and suffer from its effects. As many theorists have

pointed out, the effects of global warming are largely

unfair—even in a way that exceeds the “free rider”

problem.57 Getting the fossil fuel industry to pay for the

damage it has caused and will cause is indeed the solution,

but the commons metaphor implies that all parties share the

harms equally and all bear the responsibility to pay.

The metaphor of the “commons” implies that we share

something in common with those who suffer the effects of

climate change, but, sadly, that idea might actually be a

utilitarian ruse. The Earth is made up of many different

climate systems, and the effects of global warming will

57 With a real bus, if no one bought a ticket, no one would be able to ride the bus; with climate change, on the other hand, the free rider gets to ride the bus while those do paymust walk.

45

differ by region and will not even all relate to “climate,”

unless you count being submerged under water as a new

“climate.” Americans might be more likely to enact CO2

limiting legislation if they believe that they share in the

risks of climate change, which they do, but North America

will not be the hardest hit in the short term. In reality,

partly because of their poverty and partly because of their

tropical location, the world’s poor will be

disproportionately harmed.58

Thinking of global warming in terms of a field of grass

or in terms of overpopulation (that eventually leads to mass

famines) implies that the Earth will eventually right itself

after humans have done themselves in. While the world might

eventually entirely run out of fossil fuels, climate change

will not eventually make it impossible to burn fossil fuels.

Indeed, oil, coal, natural gas and trees can continue to

burn and permafrost can continue to decay without humans. In

the Earth’s past there have been billions of years with

58 UNDP, 2007/2008 Human Development Report: Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World.

46

radically different climates that changed for random

reasons. There is no climate that is natural or necessary

for the Earth to have, and it is not inevitable that the

Earth sustain life. In fact, the climate of Venus is the

result of a “run away greenhouse effect.” The natural

resource metaphor implies some kind of natural regeneration,

and in the case of the climate, one does not necessarily

exist.

Simple climate change communication: Burning fossil fuels

causes global warming; switch to a different energy source.

Climate change communication should be as basic and

logical as possible. If a metaphor must be made, it should

be to pollution, not resource use. It is important to

reiterate the basic scientific fact that CO2 and other

greenhouse gases, like methane, trap heat.59 The largest

source of C02 is burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and 59 Unfortunately, the terms “global warming” and “climate change” refer to the effects, not the causes; accordingly, confusion about the causes is most often reported (either that they might be natural or somehow related to the hole inthe ozone layer). Few understand that CO2 is a heat-trappinggas. Aubrun, A. and Grady, J. The Missing Conceptual Link: Talkback Testing of Simplifying Models for Global Warming, Cultural Logic, 2001.

47

natural gas). The best way to stop that pollution is to

switch to other energy sources, like wind and solar.

Countries that lead the way in making this transition

(Samso, Denmark in the case of wind and Germany in the case

of solar) have used economic incentives (feed-in tariffs)

that guarantee a profit for investors. Economic

disincentives, like a tax on fossil fuels, have also proven

effective.

It may be further necessary to mention deforestation as

a key cause, discuss different greenhouse gases, or give a

more specific account of the effects, especially those felt

in and predicted for a specific location. When doing so it

is best to use the unit of measurement with which the

audience is most familiar—sea level rise of “7 meters” means

nothing to most Americans (which will follow from the

melting of the Greenland ice sheet at some point before the

world warms 5 more degrees F),60 but “21 feet” will make

60 P. 12 IPCC, “Summary for Policymakers,” Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability.

48

them fall out of their chairs. Keeping the narrative both

simple and scientific should be the main goal.

Conclusion: De-Philosophize

The tragedy of the commons metaphor gives

environmentally minded theorists what they have always

wanted: a way to talk about environmental problems in the a

priori mode. It offers a theory of both human and non-human

nature. That fact likely explains its continued popularity.

While I am in no way opposed to theory, we must keep in mind

that the first part of our job as educators and citizens is

to offer plain speak about climate change. I have here

demonstrated that certain intellectually attractive

metaphors end up merely getting in the way of that end.

Philosophers especially, who are trained to attend to

timeless truths, might grouse at having to brush up on

elementary science. Nevertheless, as global warming has been

called the greatest moral test of our time, I hope that we

philosophically minded old dogs can rise to the challenge of

learning new tricks.

49

50