scant appreciation of the consequent damage to the biosphere, the depletion of non-
renewable resources, or the stress induced to the poorer members of society.What is the driving force behind the Commons Tragedy and the Synergistic
Tragedy? What causes individual human beings to put into jeopardy their collec-
tive wellbeing? Why do people exploit and run down not onlythe replenishable
resource ‘interest’ available to them (fish stocks, indigenous timber, ground water
and living soils), but alsoplunder the once-only non-renewable resource ‘capital’
- oil and gas reserves most particularly?
At base individual human greed, fired along by the commercial growth-
on-growth imperative, can be identified. Putting this a little less bluntly: the
cumulative social and environmental costs of the ‘two tragedy’ syndrome are a
consequence of the unshackling of social co-dependency and co-responsibility.
This contention leads to the next construct: a parody on the way in which ‘order’
trends toward ‘disorder’. This assembly, coupled to the ‘two tragedy’ depiction,
goes some way to explain exploitation and discard processes and their cumula-
tive effect.^14
❑ EXPLOITATION DYNAMICS
Excepting enforcements in accordance with national or global
directives, all human individuals, local agencies and national enti-
tiestend to act competitively and self-interestedly to maximize their con-
sumption of profiting resources, particularly those held in common
domains to which they can secure access; and they do so urgently,
up to the profiting margin, in response to the precept that should
they delay any such opportunity, competitors will pre-empt
them.^15
❑ DISCARD DYNAMICS
Excepting enforcement of pollution protection in accordance with
national or global directives, all human individuals, local agencies
and national entities tend to act evasively and self-interestedly to
avoid responsibility for disposal of their pollutants; and they do so
in response to the precept that should they fail to externalize any
such opportunity to discard their waste into the common domains,
they stand to increase the ultimate cost to themselves, of discard
disposal.A context of resource uptake and pollution ejection, which illustrates both
Exploitation Dynamics and Discard Dynamics, is available from the freeholder
utilization of geothermal energy, as was once the case for urban Rotorua in the
North Island of New Zealand.^16 In this situation, particularly because uptake of
the geothermal energy was spread territorially over a residential neighbourhood,
the landholder right to drill into the earth and install bores to take up the hot
water for general heating was in conflict with the utilization of geothermal energy
as an extensive public-property ‘common’, which happened also to energize the
local Thermal Wonderland. Prior to recent (1991) controls and ‘regional rules’ each
Charter for Conservation with Development 87‘Property values are
lower close to noxious
facilities and that is
where the poor and the
disadvantaged are by and
large forced by their
impoverished
circumstances to live.’
David Harvey, ‘The
Environment of Justice’,
1995‘From simply a human
regard, there is a limit to
the number of people
who can be expected to
know all the civic issues,
all of the contending
opinions.’
Kirkpatrick Sale, 1998