Tragedy of the Commons: Climate Change
The idea of the Tragedy of the Commons always comes up with discussions regarding climate change. The Tragedy of the Commons is when individuals act upon what is best for themselves individually and not in the interest of a group. It usually involves depleting a resource or making a scenario worse for everyone else by benefitting yourself as an individual. In the scenario of climate change, climate change affects everyone on our planet, yet no one wants to take charge to make changes because they do not want to be the ones who have to pay for all the changes that need to be made. Keeping in mind that these changes would benefit everyone. The only way that a decision will be made is if there is some sort of shared cooperation in order for everyone to put in some of their resources in order for there to be a result that everyone benefits from. The 2015 Paris talks will attempt to make these changes, but it is unknown whether or not there will be enough countries willing to participate and make a contribution to changes they want to see in the future of our world.
There is also another similar problem going on currently regarding dangerous space debris. There is a lot of space debris in the orbit our planet. They have damaged lots of equipment and satellites that exist in our orbit and have the potential to damage many more. This is a problem that no one country or company has the ability to tackle alone.
The University of Liverpool conducted research in order to use lasers to shoot the space debris before they harm anything. They used game theory in order to “assess the probability and risk within the context of decisions”. It made them realize that they need to take action before it is too late and something is damaged. It would help them use logic in order to understand how to handle the debris in our orbital in the most logical way.
If everyone decides to not take action regarding the space debris, the problem will merely worsen and worse. It will become more and more likely that something bad will happen. The situation worsens for everyone each second that no one takes action. The University of Liverpool wants to “better understand how different debris removal strategies might work and determine the best ones for each players” to take (with players referring to different companies or countries). Using game theory will help each player in the game decide how they should commit to helping this cause based on the potential of danger. It is the interest of each player to benefit themselves in this scenario because it would be much worse for them to deal with the damages caused.
http://www.newsweek.com/paris-climate-talks-will-emit-300000-tons-co2-399996