Climate Tragedy

Climate change: the ultimate ‘tragedy of the commons’?

The dominant view among scholars and policy makers has been that climate change governance should be based on international agreements which involve most nations. Yet progress in international negotiations has been slow and the effectiveness of governance based on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol (KP) has been modest. Recent debates have ...

The Tragedy of Maldistribution: Climate, Sustainability, and Equity

This essay is an initial exploration of the dimensions of the equity/sustainability linkage from the perspective of public goods analysis. Sustainability requires an abundance of public goods. Where these commons lack governance, sustainability is at risk. Equity is a critical component of sustainability that can itself be viewed as a public good, subject to deterioration (maldistribution) when...

Pediatric Tragedy

Recurrent Human Tragedy During Hajj

Hajj, a unique yearly mass gathering pilgrimage of more than 2 million Muslims from around the world, presents enormous challenges to the Saudian Arabia government.1 The potential for deadly epidemic outbreaks of bacterial and viral diseases leading to upper respiratory infection and meningitis and human stampedes call for prompt attention from both pilgrims and the ministry of healt...

The Greatest Tragedy of All: Regulating the Atmosphere in a Climate of Indecision

Climate change is a serious challenge to our planet. The point of no return will be upon us in 2014 and we are yet to regulate the emission of greenhouse gas. Failure to reach agreement at the 2009 UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen highlighted the difficulties we face in regulating use of the ultimate common pool recourse: our atmosphere. Surrounding these difficulti...