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Showing posts from January, 2015

The Tragedy of the Privates

Some of you may recall that sometime last year we had a visiting scholar, Camote, Ph.D . He has been in the field since August 2014, but sent us this short essay reacting to the culling of approximately 60 trees by SM , in Baguio City. Stock photo of Camote, PhD. Taken July 2014, towards the end of his fellowship in our kitchen. THE TRAGEDY OF THE PRIVATES*  News travels quickly through the underground networks of plants. Leaving aside the anguish that coursed through our roots as the trees on Luneta Hill fell Saturday night, I offer up this food for thought for the human communities of this city. Image credit: Sherwin Cabunilas and Bringing 182 to the Supreme Court. In 1968 Garrett Hardin wrote a seminal essay in Science Magazine entitled, The Tragedy of the Commons . His ideas will be familiar to many. Hardin used the metaphor of medieval European herders to argue that in a commons, a shared resource with open access, all rational individuals will seek to maximise