Much of man's world is treated as a "commons" wherein individuals have the right to freely consume its resources and return their wastes. The "logic of the commons" ultimately produces its ruin as well as the demise of those who depend upon it for survival. The commons relationship between people and their environment was noted by Garrett Hardin in "The Tragedy of the Commons", a 1968 paper published in the journal SCIENCE (162:1243-1248). This Web Page is dedicated to examining in more detail, the consequences of treating our ecosystem as a commons.

To learn more about the tragedy of the commons, please feel free to print a copy of the essays listed below.

• The Commons; What it is, How it works and Why it continues
  
• Unpopular Science; The Tragedy Denied
  
• The Atmospheric Commons and Global Warming
  
• The Atmospheric Commons and Human Population
  
• The Commons Unshared; Biodiversity Loss
  
• Politics, Economics and the Perpetuation of the Commons
  
• Those Who Make the Rules in the Commons
  
• Carbon Emissions and the Atmospheric Commons
  
• The Future in the Commons
  

Other Resources About The Tragedy of the Commons

• Papers on Sustainability by A. A. Bartlett
  
• More on the Tragedy of the Commons
  
• Managing the Commons
  
• Stalking the Wild Taboo
  
• Correcting Mythes About the Tragedy of the Commons
  
• Food for Thought on the Tragedy of the Commons
  
• State of the World 1997
  
• World Watch Institute
  
• World Resources Institute
  
• Union of Concerned Scientists
  
• Earth Island Journal
  
• Earth Portals
  
• Corporate Watch
  

Catalogues of Wealth

• Lists of the World's Richest People
  
• Lists of (and All About) the World's Richest Corporations
  

Population growth resources

• Population Reference Bureau
  
• World Population Data Sheet
  
• Zero Population Growth
  
• Negative Population Growth
  
• KZPG Population News Network
  
• Bureau of the Census
  
• Bureau of Labor Statistics