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LECTURE
GEOG 270
Fall 2007
October 26, 2007
Joe Hannah, PhD
Department of Geography
University of Washington
Global Warming in the
Third World
Topic Wrap-up
To Do Today
I.
II.
III.
Recap Dr. Mercer’s Lecture
Governing the Commons: The Kyoto
Protocol and Personal Food Choices
Wrap-up
I. Dr. Mercer’s talk: The Commons
1.
2.
3.
What is “the Commons”
What’s the Argument between Dietz, et.
al. (2003), and Garrett Harding (1968)?
What’s this have to do with Global
Warming?
What are “Commons?”
► State
exists (according to Hobbes and
others) to protect property
► Types of property
 Private
 Public – “excludable” (examples??)
 Public – “non-excludable”  COMMONS
(examples??)
What’s the “Tragedy of the
Commons”
► Garrett
Hardin’s 1968 article (“Perhaps the most
influential social sciences article yet written.”)
► Main arguments:
 People act in their own self interest (selfish, homo
economicus)
 For resources held in common, people will attempt to
maximize their benefits (access) and minimize their
costs
 This leads to degradation of the resource
 Examples???
► Therefore:
Private property is the only way to
efficiently allocate resources…
Dietz’s Counterargument
“Is it possible to govern such critical commons as
the oceans and the climate? We remain guardedly
optimistic.” (p. 1910)
► History
shows that commons can be governed at a
local level.
► People are cooperative as well as self-interested.
► Need more advanced, overlapping institutions to
deal with rapid changes and a large number of
interested actors.
Global Climate Change as a Problem
of “The Commons”
Write:
► Why
are the debates over Common Property
important when dealing with global
warming?
► Do states act like people, i.e., self-interested
and/or cooperative?
► How do sub-state issues (like arguments
between Democrats and Republicans in the US)
affect states’ ability to cooperate?
II. Governing the Commons:
The Kyoto Protocol
Built on 1992 Rio Earth Summit “UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change”
– Signed by President GHW Bush and
unanimously approved by Congress
► Kyoto not ratified by US under President GW
Bush – what changed?
► What was the argument in the Byrd-Hagel
Resolution? (What was Kolbert’s “ice cream cake”
►
analogy?)
Tragedy of the Commons
on a Global Scale?
► Is
the US position justifiable?
► Is Harding right?
► Or is Dietz right, and maybe Kyoto is the
wrong form of governance of the commons?
Our Actions: Personal Responsibility
vs. “Individuization”
► Do
our personal choices about what to eat
really make a difference?
 When do you consider these choices “political?”
► Both
Deutch and McWilliams talked about
our own personal role in this issue of the
global warming Commons
► “All politics is local.”(Congressman Tip O’Neill)
III. Wrap-up
► Quick
look at climate change issues
► Issues covered
 Mechanisms of global warming
 Problems confronting developing countries from
global warming:
►
sea-level rise, health problems, agricultural collapse
 Equity – “Climate debt?”
 Global Warming and Security
 Global Warming as a problem of “The
Commons”