From the Time of Aristotle, Mankind has been plagued by 'The Tragedy of the Commons......is a phenomenon described in economics and ecology in which common resources, to which access is not regulated by formal rules or fees/taxes levied based on individual use, tend to become depleted.^[1][2] If users of such resources act to maximise their self-interest and do not coordinate with others to maximise the overall common good, exhaustion and even permanent destruction of the resource may result, if the number of the users and the amount they demand exceeds what is available.^[3]The concept of unrestricted-access resources becoming spent, where personal use does not incur personal expense, has been discussed for millennia. Aristotle wrote that "That which is common to the greatest number gets the least amount of care. Men pay most attention to what is their own: they care less for what is common."^[4] The foundation for scholarly discussion of the topic however came in an 1833 essay by British economist William Forster Lloyd.^[5] Lloyd supposed that, should common land parcels shared between cattle herders in Great Britain and Ireland (known as "the commons" in Anglo-Saxon Law) come to ruin, this should be attributed to those herders that allowed more than their allocated quota of cattle to graze on them.^[6][7] While it may appear economically rational to an individual to over-consume in this context as doing so bears no immediate personal cost, such common land became barren and even permanently ruined where sufficient numbers of herders engaged in such activity.^[6] Although provided as a hypothetical example, according to critical scholars the commons’ destruction came about from landholders of the commons who claimed and enclosed these lands, preventing common use    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons             .......and.......        If we keep abusing nature, it will collapse taking us with it. We need a new mindset.....At Cop meetings in Egypt and Canada, humanity faces two doors. Door one leads to untold misery. We have no choice but to take door two  by Christiana Figueres   Over the last 50 years, an ill-fated paradigm has shaped western thought and action: the “tragedy of the commons”. This is a situation in which everyone operates according to their own self-interest and ultimately depletes our shared resources. Ever since the term was first coined in 1968, we have been acting it out to its fullest with devastating consequences for our land, water and atmosphere. The climate and biodiversity crises have made it abundantly clear that we need to correct this fallacy and take care of the global commons. We all need clean air, fertile soil, thriving biodiversity and healthy oceans to survive and prosper. The temperature limits set by the Paris agreement will not be achieved without halting the conversion of intact ecosystems now, and regenerating what’s already been depleted.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Much of nature is on the brink of collapse because of rising CO2 emissions, industrial farming and pollution. That’s why this year at the twin Cops – the climate Cop in Egypt, and the biodiversity Copin Canada – we need an ambitious, joined-up action that delivers on promises to cut emissions and commits to stopping and reversing catastrophic biodiversity loss and species extinction. It’s time to halt the tragedy, and focus on the necessity of the commons. Every drop of water we drink, every molecule of oxygen we breathe and every morsel of food we eat comes from nature. The evolution of the human race shows thatwe need nature much more than she needs us!! The major challenge in front of us is not technical or financial. What’s needed is a mindset shift. Yet changing mindsets is not mentioned in many of the excellent climate action and nature conservation roadmaps that leaders consult. It’s time we called that out. Sticking with the idea that the self-serving use of common resources is inevitable or irreversible, at a time in which deep, systemic collaboration is called for, will not deliver good results. For us to achieve a decarbonised economy in which people and nature thrive, we need action at both the local and global levels. One company or one government alone cannot make the kind of difference we need; the transformations must be systemic and exponential, and delivered with justice in mind. It’s only by changing the way we think, from competitive towards collaborative, that we will be able to work together and accelerate these efforts. This radical mindset shift would open up our horizons and allow us to seek others in our sectors, cities, neighbourhoods and regions who we can collaborate with.                       https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/02/nature-climate-crisis-new-mindset

Global food system is broken, say world’s science academies. Radical overhaul in farming and consumption, with less meat eating, needed to avoid hunger and climate catastrophe. Four year old Article but sadly Nothing Much has Changed! The global food system is broken, leaving billions of people either underfed or overweight and driving the planet towards climate catastrophe, according to 130 national academies of science and medicine across the world. Providing a healthy, affordable, and environmentally friendly diet for all people will require a radical transformation of the system, says the report by the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP). This will depend on better farming methods, wealthy nations consuming less meat and countries valuing food which is nutritious rather than cheap. The report, which was peer reviewed and took three years to compile, sets out the scale of the problems as well as evidence-driven solutions. The global food system is responsible for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than all emissions from transport, heating, lighting and air conditioning combined. The global warming this is causing is now damaging food production through extreme weather events such as floods and droughts. The food system also fails to properly nourish billions of people. More than 820 million people went hungry last year, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, while a third of all people did not get enough vitamins. At the same time, 600 million people were classed as obese and 2 billion overweight, with serious consequences for their health. On top of this, more than 1bn tonnes of food is wasted every year, a third of the total produced. “The global food system is broken,” said Tim Benton, professor of population ecology, at the University of Leeds, who is a member of one of the expert editorial groups which produced the report. He said the cost of the damage to human health and the environment was much greater than the profits made by the farming industry. “Whether you look at it from a human health, environmental or climate perspective, our food system is currently unsustainable and given the challenges that will come from a rising global population that is a really [serious] thing to say,” Benton said. Reducing meat and dairy consumption is the single biggest way individuals can lessen their impact on the planet, according to recent research. And tackling dangerous global warming is considered impossible without massive reductions in meat consumption. Research published in the journal Climate Policy shows that at the present rate, cattle and other livestock will be responsible for half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and that to prevent this will require “substantial reductions, far beyond what are planned or realistic, from other sectors”. “It is vital [for a liveable planet] that we change our relationship with meat, especially with red meat. But no expert in this area is saying the world should be vegan or even vegetarian,” said Benton.          https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/28/global-food-system-is-broken-say-worlds-science-academies

Our leaders—good and bad—have understood that they must say and do something about climate change; it is, after all, the worst crisis we’ve ever wandered into as a species. The word they like to say is yes!—to new spending on all sorts of things. Which is great: Joe Biden, for instance, convinced Congress to say yes to the IRA, which has tons of money that, as the Economist pointed out this week, seems to be functioning as intended, spurring lots of investment in wind, solar, EVs and so on. But the ultimate goal of climate policy can’t be just to produce more renewable energy; if it doesn’t also dramatically and quickly cut the production of oil, gas and coal then it won’t really help.  That’s why the news about the Biden administration’s capitulation on the Willow oil complex was so woeful. Here was a brand new project on the most remote and untouched corner of the nation, in a place already so damaged by climate change that its builders may have to refreeze the tundra before they can drill—and yet Biden could not bring himself to say no to the Alaska congressional delegation,                                                                                                                                                Vast new oil fields have also been approved for exploitation by Westernmultinational companies in Guyana, Brazil and Uganda, among others. Some developing countries have argued that income from fossil fuel — essential to the prosperity of the industrialized world — is also their right, and that climate change mitigation is largely the responsibility of wealthy nations. In fact, the president of Ghana told visiting vice-president Kamala Harris last week that he too planned to drill for oil, “which my government is seeking to use as the basis to transform its economy." There wasn’t much she could say in return—Ghana’s moral case is obviously stronger than rich Alaska’s. The most remarkable example may be the United Arab Emirates, which will host this fall’s climate negotiations. Sultan Al Jaber, who will serve as host of the talks, runs the Emirates renewable energy company, Masdar, which claims to have invested more than almost any other corporation in solar and wind—more than $30 billion over the last two decades. Over the last two months he’s told various international forums that “we have to rapidly reduce emissions” and that “oil and gas companies need to align around net zero,” and that “we in the UAE are not shying away from the energy transition. We are running towards it.” But as a Guardian expose this week revealed that the UAE in fact is running in precisely the opposite direction: it has plans for the world’s third-biggest expansion of oil and gas drilling. The busy Al Jaber in fact runs not just its renewable energy company but its fossil fuel company as well, and that one plans to spend $150 billion over the next five years (compared, again, with the $30 billion over the last two decades on the clean stuff) to enable an “accelerated growth strategy” for oil and gas production.,,,,,read on        https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/just-say-no?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

JUST THINK OF WHAT $3 TRILLION COULD HAVE BEEN DONE FOR HUMANITY! Iraq War Costs Could Hit Nearly $3 Trillion by 2050: Report. The Costs of War Project said the U.S.-led invasion and occupation "caused massive death, destruction, and political instability," killing hundreds of thousands of people while displacing millions more. The Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs said that "this budgetary figure includes costs to date, estimated at about $1.79 trillion, and the costs of veterans' care through 2050."  Since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, between 550,000-580,000 people have been killed in Iraq and Syria, the current locations of the United States’ Operation Inherent Resolve. March 19-20, 2023 marks 20 years since United States forces invaded Iraq to oust dictator Saddam Hussein, under the false claim that his regime was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. The ensuing war, in which U.S. ground presence peaked in 2007 with over 170,000 soldiers, caused massive death, destruction, and political instability in Iraq. Among the consequences was the increase of sectarian politics, widespread violence, and the rise of the Islamic State militant group with its terror attacks throughout the Middle East. Though the U.S. government officially ended its Iraq War in 2011, the repercussions of the invasion and occupation as well as subsequent and ongoing military interventions have had an enormous human, social, economic, and environmental toll. An estimated 300,000 people have died from direct war violence in Iraq, while the reverberating effects of war continue to kill and sicken hundreds of thousands more. The new report includes estimates for Syria, which the United States began bombing during the Obama administration after Islamic State militants rose to power amid the destabilization and power vacuum caused by the Iraq invasion and Syrian civil war. Including Syria, the Costs of War Project says between 550,000-580,000 people have been killed since March 2003, and "several times as many may have died due to indirect causes such as preventable diseases." "More than 7 million people from Iraq and Syria are currently refugees, and nearly 8 million people are internally displaced in the two countries," the publication notes.     https://www.commondreams.org/news/iraq-war-cost