We will never be defined by tragedy, but instead by how we respond to it. ~ Kevin Brady
A brief preface. Spring came two-months early this year for me – on January 20 – when Joe Biden was inaugurated as President and Kamala Harris as our Vice President. I am beyond delighted. Although we Americans still face significant challenges – the Covid pandemic and the recession, to name just two – my optimista feelings are far stronger and encouraging about getting through the next few whiles. I’ve sorely missed having these feelings for all too long, four years too long.
** **
**
Common land has been an ancient
and principal ingredient for humans’ progress. It’s land owned collectively by
multiple people, or by one person, but which others have rights to use. Such
rights have included pasture and pannage. Pasture rights allowed yeomen to let
their livestock – cattle, sheep, horses and other animals – graze on the common
land. Pannage is a common-land right that permitted crofters to turn out their pigs
to eat nuts that had fallen on the ground from Oak, Beech and other trees in
autumn. Yum.
Millennia ago, virtually all human
pastoral groups held common land; millions of acres of open-field, common land
existed for centuries. An example, below, is Buchans Field in Scotland, near South Lamarkshire, that was
farmed as common land for nearly a millennium from the Middle Ages until the late
One of the earliest and remaining
examples of common land in North America is the Boston Common, dating from
1634, and now a center-city public park.[1]
It’s the oldest city park in the US. In the 1630s this common was used by many people
as a pasture for their cows. Alas, as families put more and more cows to feed
on the common, while contentedly chewing their cuds, it began suffering from
overgrazing.
In 1646 the Puritan elders ordered
a limitation, that the common could have no more than 70 cattle/cows at any
time to stop its ruin. It’s not clear if the elders’ limitation ameliorated this
first American tragedy of the commons. It took another 200 years for this
common’s authorities to formally ban cows.
What is clear, the Boston Common
has not been the last American tragedy of the commons. The notion of the common
has expanded greatly since 1968, when Garrett Harden wrote his ground-breaking article,
“The Tragedy of the Commons.” In Harden’s view the actions of individuals using
a common resource for their own, specific gain, without regard for others, will
ultimately and tragically despoil and deplete these resources.
The modern characterization of the
common or “common resources” includes not only land, but any jointly-held,
open-access resource, be it land, rivers, oceans, the atmosphere or beyond. I
describe now the status of two examples of commons, one new, heretofore uncommon
and very high, the other lower and much more well-trodden.
The Higher Common. Let’s get very high and talk about our space
common. Yes, there is one. There are two portions of this higher common, so
far. First, and farther away, is the moon.
The 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty
that 132 nations have signed states that no government can claim the moon; it
is wholly a common resource. The 1979 UN Moon Agreement strengthens this
in saying lunar resources are the "common heritage of mankind" and
must be shared.
When Neil Armstrong became the
first human to step onto our moon on July 20, 1969. He and Buzz Aldrin called it
a day after walking around in the lunar dust for three hours. My brother and I happened
to be in London that day. We went to a local pub to celebrate Apollo 11’s
pioneering success and were toasted by many equally-happy Brits who bought us
as many pints as we wanted. That was a most uncommon day.
The second portion of space common
is our planet’s atmospheric common, which is far more populated with human pursuits
including much twirling debris. The first human-built, artificial
satellite that entered our space common circling the Earth was USSRs Sputnik 1.
It initiated the US-USSR Space Race.
Sputnik was launched into low-Earth
orbit on October 4, 1957. The small (23 in. diameter) sphere with trailing
antennae orbited for three weeks before its batteries died and then burned up
in the atmosphere two months later. Going forward 63 years there are now over 2,218
operational satellites revolving in Earth’s space commons. Twelve nations and
one regional organization (the European Space Agency) have launched orbiting
satellites. The US has launched 859 satellites, the most of any nation.
There are also more than one
million pieces of space junk also circling mother Earth. The bulk of orbital waste
are small objects like paint flecks, metal parts and solidified liquids ejected
from spacecraft. Also, the US Space Surveillance Network is continuously
tracking more than 20,000 larger objects, like dead satellites and abandoned
launch vehicle stages. The higher common doesn’t suffer from too many cows, it’s
littered with mega junk.
Several manned and unmanned
spacecraft have been damaged or wrecked by space debris. So, before you book your
sub-orbital flight on Virgin Galactic from its Spaceport America facility near
Truth or Consequences, New Mexico (here’s hoping it will all be truth, and no
nasty consequences), you may want to check exactly how your pilot will avoid
the ever-growing mess of low-earth orbital scrap. Virgin Galactic says they
have 600 paying customers (a suspiciously round number), including Justin
Bieber and Leonard de Caprio, ready for their $250,000 rides. Happy trails,
guys.
A vital question is how to remove orbiting
space junk, to reduce this higher common’s growing tragedy. Technically, it’s
hugely challenging because of the technological hurdles associated with relevant
orbital mechanics. Several possible means of dissipating the debris are being
discussed. Very early, initial tests are planned, not any of which is ready for
prime-time space garbage collecting. Crucially, none of the participants in the
orbital marketplace is ready to answer the very expensive, key question, “who’s
going to pay and how?” Until that happens, space junk will keep proliferating.
The Lower Common. Back to Earth. The lower common doesn’t
require a telescope or a rocket ship to see. Just take a gander at some
terrestrial fresh water, perhaps the most precious resource that sustains our
lives, next to the atmosphere. Fresh water is a finite, common resource needed
by every living organism on a daily basis. For a very long time, even in the
mostly-arid Western US, we have taken its availability for granted. That time is
ending.
A recent example is the 2011
through 2014 severe drought in California, the driest in the state’s history. This
was the latest one. There have been many other droughts that have affected
western states on an all too regular basis, which we do our best not to think
much about.
This devastating drought was
principally caused by climatic conditions (as always), and magnified by misguided
government policies governing the water market. I characterize it as a liquid
tragedy of the common caused in large part by pricing water too low for too
long for too many users.
The market for fresh water in the
western US (and elsewhere) is highly regulated by federal, state and local
public agencies. In large part, the tragedy is based on regulated prices of
water that have never reflected the actual costs and value of providing and using
it.
Substantial public subsidies, at
the deep end of the subsidy pool especially for agricultural (ag) irrigators,
have kept water prices preferentially very low. Thus, there has long been
over-consumption and inefficient usage of this common resource. Six years ago, over 210,000
California water customers were not even metered for their usage, including in
Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe. These customers pay a flat rate no matter how
much water they use.
Agricultural irrigation users have
benefited the most from inexpensive water prices. They consume about 80% of California’s
fresh water all by themselves, and for decades have paid downright benthic,
rock-bottom lowest prices of any users.
The uppermost prices that
large-scale California irrigation customers pay are only about 20% of what residential
water customers shell out. Even though urban water’s prices that you and I pay
are typically faint (e.g., 1.4¢ /gal.), they’re much, much
higher than irrigators’ prices. A 5:1 price ratio between urban and ag users is
common; with ratios as high as 10:1 in some areas.
Such large price differences
between irrigators and residential customers have enticed new entrants into
water markets. Specifically, well-funded private investment firms are purchasing
relatively inexpensive age-old water-rights from farmers or water districts so
they can eventually then sell to urban districts for a profit. These firms are
making money the old-fashion way in a new context; in this case as water
arbitragers, by inexpensively buying a truly liquid asset and selling it higher
to other customers.
Why would farmers sell their
property’s water rights? The investment firms are offering them attractive
prices. Farmers have traditionally seen their land as their 401(k). But the
parched Western US with its ever-increasing urbanization requires more and more
water for residents. This is especially true for urban areas surrounded by
low-rainfall desert, like Las Vegas and Phoenix.
For ag irrigators throughout the
seven-state Colorado River basin and in the Central Valley, their retirement
funds now are far more likely to be their riparian water rights rather than
their acreage per se. Their water-rights are becoming worth much more to
private investors than their land.
This shift of water rights from
the common to absentee investors is changing who controls one of the most valuable
resources in the US, publicly-owned water. If this continues, I would characterize
it as a re-Cadillacing of western water resources, apropos of Marc Reisner’s
classic book, The Cadillac Desert, in which he castigated preposterous federal
and state water development policies. Where the lower common ends is anyone’s
guess; not even the Puritans’ successors know.
[1] Indigenous, native American peoples used common land to graze their animals and sow crops for centuries, long before 1634.
