The tragedy of the commons refers to a situation in which individuals with access to a public resource (also called a common) act in their own interest and in so doing, ultimately deplete the resource.
Over exploitation of the world’s fisheries is a prime example. The ocean is owned by everyone so no-one takes responsibility for it. The prevailing ethos is ‘if I don’t net those fish then the next guy will’. Consequently 50 per cent of fish stocks have been hunted to commercial extinction.
It occurred to me that climate change, the seemingly unstoppable rise in greenhouse gas, is a tragedy of the commons. The biosphere is a public resource. Australia may be intent on reducing the amount of greenhouse gas domestically but is the world’s second biggest exporter of coal and gas for other countries to burn. Even though we profit enormously from the sale of these fossil fuels, we justify our dissonance by saying ‘If we don’t sell them coal and gas, somebody else will’. I think arms dealers share that same morality.
For Australia to become a truly responsible global citizen in this climate emergency, we have to forsake profiting from the sale of fossil fuels and leave them in the ground. This is our greatest environmental challenge because it means walking away from $120 billion in GDP revenue (which is growing each year).
But there is a silver lining. According to the Milankovitch Cycle (search it) in 60,000 years our planet enters another Ice Age and the temperature plunges 5–6 degrees and half the Earth freezes over. Then we will really appreciate every lump of coal and litre of gas we can get hold of!
The trouble is, the doomsday spectre of climate change is so pervasive, few believe we will be here in 60,000 years. That is so sad.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
