Managing shared resources

Abstract

To avoid Hardin's "tragedy," commons have been typically managed in one of four ways: as state property, as private property, through community management or as a mixture of the three approaches. [...]recent decades, the state property approach was most prevalent throughout Canada, and was characterized by top-down, centralized management and regulation; essentially, leave It to the government experts. [...]we continue to increase emissions by pursuing a policy of developing and exporting fossil fuels, as politicians in power continue to argue that this approach is economically rational - precisely the kind of short-term, selfinterested thinking that leads to the tragedy of the commons.