Tragedy of the Commons

What is this video all about? Why would I put a video of mice trying to drink from a water bottle on the blog page? No sound, poor quality video. Doesn't make any sense ... Or does it?

What is the problem the mice are having? Well lets take a look at the obvious.

1) There are lots of mice in the cage.
2) 15 or so of the mice are all trying to drink from the water bottle at the same time.
3) Very few of them are actually getting to drink from the bottle because there are so many trying to use it at once.
4) The water bottle will not last very long with that many mice drinking from it. Some mice might go thirsty.

How does this apply to the Tragedy of the Commons? Well watch this video and see what you think!



There ya go! The water bottle is the field or the grass. Only so many mice can drink from the water bottle before it runs dry. Some mice may go thirsty because there are too many mice trying to drink from the same bottle.

Similarly, we need to protect the environment be each of our individual actions add up to be one huge mess for the environment. The last video is an example of just that!