Tragically difficult: the obstacles to governing the commons.

I. INTRODUCTION

In 1968 Garrett Hardin published his famous and oft-cited article "The Tragedy of the Commons," examining the overuse of commonly shared resources.(1) Hardin chose his title well. The problem of the tragedy of the commons has been recognized since at least the days of Aristotle.(2) But Hardin gave the problem a vivid and visceral name that quickly captures our attention and tells us much of what we need to know.

Anyone who has studied the environment for very long understands the tragedy of the commons. When a resource is freely available to everyone in common, everyone has an incentive to take as much of that resource as they want, even though the collective result may be the destruction of the resource itself. Society as a whole would be better off restraining consumption and preserving the resource. But the rational action for each individual is to consume to her heart's content. Because no one can bind anyone else's actions, not consuming simply makes one a patsy. To each individual, moreover, her own actions seem insignificant. Holding back will lead to a marginal improvement, if any, in the condition of the resource. Even those who recognize and bemoan the oncoming tragedy of overuse will often conclude that it makes no sense not to join others in depleting the resource. The high road leads nowhere. The cumulative result of reasonable individual choices is collective disaster.

Most of the recent academic literature on the tragedy of the commons examines why some commons do not lead to tragic consequences. Elinor Ostrom and others have shown that local communities throughout the world sometimes have been able to avoid the tragedy through the development of local management institutions.(3) Psychologists also have conducted experiments to determine which conditions maximize the chances that individual resource users will limit their consumption even when trapped in the logic of the commons. These experiments suggest that resource users are more likely to restrict their consumption when they receive prompt feedback on the impact of their extractions, when their behavior is visible to others, when they can communicate with their fellow resource users, and when the users share a group identity.(4) The message of both fieldwork and experimental commons is that tragedy is not inevitable. With the right conditions, resource users can avoid depleting the resource.

My interest, however, is not with the success stories, but with the pathology of the failures. Tragedy may not be inevitable in the commons, but unfortunately tragedy remains the predominant outcome. My interest, moreover, is not why commons typically lead to tragedy. Hardin and others have done an excellent job explaining the process by which resource users, left to individual choices, are driven to overuse the resource.(5) My interest is why it has proven difficult for governments, communities, and other institutions to adopt and implement solutions to common dilemmas--and, even more troubling, why resource users often have been the most vociferous opponents of solutions.

Academics not only have explained the structural fabric of the tragedy of the commons, but also have identified a number of workable solutions. One frequently promoted solution is to privatize the commons. Both field investigations and social science experiments have shown that privatization, when possible, is typically a particularly effective solution to the tragedy of the commons.(6) When a resource can be privatized, the resource owners will incur the entire cost of overuse and thus carefully husband the resource. A related solution is to unitize the resource: organize a single operator to manage exploitation of the resource and divide any profits among the community of resource users or owners.(7) When privatization or unitization is not possible--and frequently such solutions are not workable for technological or cultural reasons--government or community regulation can limit overuse of the commons.(8) The government can restrict the total number of cattle being grazed in the common pasture, cap extractions of petroleum, or control discharges of pollutants into a surface stream. Local communities can establish and enforce informal rules.(9)

Despite multiple workable solutions to the tragedy of the commons, however, governments and other institutions have found it extremely difficult to address many of the most important commons dilemmas facing the world today. Resource users, moreover, have typically been the most vociferous critics of proposed solutions. In a number of important commons contexts, resource users have vehemently denied that there is a problem (despite relatively substantial evidence that a serious problem exists), argued that intervention by the government or other outside institutions is unnecessary (despite repeated failures by the community of resource users themselves to voluntarily or collectively limit resource use), and opposed suggested solutions as unfair and unwise. The question that impels this Essay is why it has proven so difficult to implement effective solutions and, more specifically, why resource users have proven not only unreceptive, but affirmatively hostile, to such solutions.

One should not expect that solving the tragedy of the commons will be easy. Just as the tragedy of the commons presents a collective action problem, so do attempts to solve the problem. Solving the tragedy of the commons is an example of a public good because all users of the commons benefit from a solution. No individual resource user may see why it is in her particular advantage to rush out and spend political and other resources trying to solve the tragedy. Let Joe take the lead, Jill thinks. But of course the problem is that Joe, in turn, waits for Jill to take the lead, and both wait for Bob. The result, according to political economists, is that everyone holds back and nothing gets done.

Many resource users, moreover, might conclude that they are better off in a commons free-for-all than in a world constrained by property rights, unified management, or regulation. Some resource users might decide that they enjoy special advantages over other users in the race for the resource. For example, a particularly expert fisherman might believe that he is likely to land far more fish in an unrestricted fishery before the fishery is exhausted than he would be permitted to land under an imposed allocation. Or a resource user might receive a great deal of psychic value from the competitive character of an unconstrained commons. A fisherman, for example, might enjoy the contest of finding and catching fish before other fishermen do.

Even resource users who favor constraining overall depletion of the commons might conclude that there is no practical means of policing any solution. A characteristic of many of the most perplexing commons dilemmas, such as world fisheries is the difficulty of determining how much any particular resource user is tapping the commons. The opacity of user behavior is one of the factors thai: contribute to the tragedy; unable to gauge others' behavior, each user feeds on the fear that others are maximizing their consumption and, therefore, increases his or her own consumption.(10) The same opacity makes agreed-upon restrictions difficult, if not impossible, to enforce. And resource users are likely to advocate solutions only if they are enforceable.(11)

But some people are willing to take the lead in resolving commons problems, even when others share the benefits. And ending the tragedy will be in the clear interest of many resource users. Absent a solution, the resource that the users' livelihoods, and in some cases their lives, depend upon may be destroyed.(12) Even if a resource user believes that he enjoys a comparative advantage in a race for the resource, races are exhausting and typically require a greater expenditure of resources. Balancing the benefits and costs of an unconstrained commons, thus, should lead many resource users to want a solution.

Moreover, the factors that undermine peoples' incentive to reduce theft individual use of an unrestricted commons should not undermine their incentive to support a collective solution that constrains everyone's use of the commons.(13) A resource user trying to decide whether to support a collectively mandated solution, for example, does not have to worry about becoming a patsy, because everyone will be bound by the same solution. Nor will resource users be deterred by the concern that their individual decisions will have only a marginal impact on the health of the resource; unlike unilateral, voluntary actions, the adoption of a universal solution can save the resource.(14)

Experimental simulations of commons dilemmas confirm these intuitions.(15) Participants in the simulations behave far more cooperatively when choosing whether to support a universal solution than when choosing whether voluntarily to restrict their resource use. Even participants who refuse to limit their consumption in the face of clear evidence that the resource is being depleted will vote to eliminate free access to that resource if overuse becomes bad enough. Trapped in a commons dilemma, participants will continue to compete for the resource until the resource is depleted. But given the opportunity to limit capture, a mojority of participants realize at some point that it is in their rational self-interest to solve the commons dilemma.(16)

Yet in real life, many commons dilemmas have proven impossible to resolve. Not only is it difficult to get people to actively support solutions to commons dilemmas, but also the people with the most to lose if the commons is destroyed--the resource users themselves--often combine together to oppose proposed solutions. The primary questions addressed in this Essay are why resource users so frequently oppose proposed solutions and whether there are any steps that could increase the chance of enlisting the support of resource users in solving the tragic cycle in which they are trapped.

II. THREE EXAMPLES

Three examples of current commons dilemmas--depletion of the world's fisheries, groundwater overdrafting, and global climate change--illustrate the frequent opposition of resource users to solving the tragedy of the commons. In each of the examples, a reasonable case can be made that governmental or collective intervention through regulation, unification, or property rights delineation is in the long-term interest of the majority of resource users. Yet the resource users often actively oppose seemingly reasonable solutions. These examples are particularly troubling, because the resources in all three cases are crucial to either regional economies, or in the case of global climate change, world environmental security.

A. Depletion of World Fisheries

Ocean fisheries are one of the world's most important resources. The fisheries are a major source of both sustenance and employment, particularly in the developing world.(17) The ocean is also the habitat for a far older, richer, and more diverse set of species than we find on land. Unfortunately, as Carl Safina has recently illuminated in his elegant book Song for a Blue Ocean, ocean fisheries are prime examples of commons, and the resulting overuse of these commons is having increasingly tragic consequences.(18)

Modern technologies now enable fishermen to go wherever the fish are found and to identify, track, and catch the fish with a relentless efficiency. The resulting tragedy has been dramatic. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, many of the world's commercially important marine fish populations are currently in urgent need of managed conservation.(19) Nine of the world's seventeen major fishing grounds are in serious decline; four have been commercially fished out.(20) In the United States's coastal waters, the National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) has reported that of the fish stocks trader NMFS's jurisdiction whose status is known, over one third are overutilized; almost another half are fully utilized.(21) The current population levels of almost half of those stocks, moreover, are below the levels needed to support long-term potential yield.(22) NMFS expects that the percentage of overfished stocks will increase in the future.(23)

One might expect that fishermen would strongly support efforts to eliminate overfishing. Not taking any action might ultimately mean the closure of the very fisheries upon which the fishermen currently rely for their livelihoods. Indeed, many commercial fisheries are already closed or producing lower harvests, causing serious economic repercussions for the fishermen and for the communities in which they live. Canada had to close its commercial groundfishery off Newfoundland in 1992, which led to the loss of thousands of jobs, the withering of local communities, and a huge social welfare bill.(24) In 1994, the United States Secretary of Commerce approved an emergency closure of portions of the Grand Banks, once among the greatest fishing grounds in the world.(25) Worldwide, all of the major regional fisheries, with the lone exception of the Indian Ocean fisheries, are producing significantly lower catches than ten years ago.(26) In a number of fisheries, the yields have dropped thirty to fifty percent from their peaks.(27)

How have fishermen responded? Some local fishing communities have taken steps to regulate themselves.(28) The United States also has taken some steps to address the fishing tragedy, often with the support of at least a segment of the fishing industry. In 1976 Congress passed the Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson Act),(29) which established an exclusive fishery conservation zone that is effectively off limits to foreign fishing vessels,(30) as well as eight regional management councils with authority to establish management plans for endangered fisheries.(31) In 1996 Congress strengthened the Magnuson Act through the Sustainable Fisheries Act (SFA).(32) The SFA tightens restrictions on overfishing and requires management plans to include a timetable for ending overfishing and rebuilding overfished stocks within ten years.(33)

Fishing interests, however, have actively fought the inclusion of stronger management and enforcement provisions in the Magnuson Act.(34) Moreover, fishing organizations throughout the United States have worked to undermine effective implementation of the Act.(35) Fishing interests control the regional management councils and typically have opposed management efforts that would significantly reduce catches.(36) As of 1998, regional councils had adopted a total of only thirty-nine fishery management plans.(37) A number of the species classified as overfished are still awaiting plans, and many of the existing plans are decidedly inadequate.(38) According to a 1999 National Marine Fisheries Services report, results under the Magnuson Act have been mixed at best. Of the fifty-nine fish stocks listed as overutilized in 1992, forty-two were still overutilized in 1999.(39) And the number of fish stocks at population levels below that needed to support long-term potential yield actually increased twenty-five percent.(40)

The 1996 Sustainable Fisheries Act is unlikely to change this picture any time soon. Despite the SFA's attempt to limit overfishing and restore fisheries, many of the plans that have been adopted in the wake of the 1996 act permit continued overfishing for the immediate future.(41) The Marine Fish Conservation Network, a coalition of conservation, fishing, and environmental organizations, believes that all of the plans adopted under the SFA are inadequate to rebuild stocks within ten years, as required by that statute.(42)

B. Groundwater Overdrafting

Compared to the attention that fishery problems have received, worldwide threats to groundwater, an equally important resource, have received little attention. Thirty percent of the world's freshwater reserves are groundwater.(43) If you exclude those freshwater resources that are locked up in glaciers and permafrost, groundwater constitutes over ninety-seven percent of the world's freshwater reserves.(44) Groundwater satisfies about a quarter of the off-stream water needs of the United States, and groundwater use actually exceeds surface water use in over a half-dozen states, ranging geographically from Florida on the east coast to Hawaii in the Pacific.(45) Moreover, groundwater use is growing relative to surface water use. From 1985 to 1995, groundwater use increased five percent in the United States.(46) During the same period, surface water use declined slightly.(47) As noted by the Western Water Policy Review Advisory Commission in its 1998 Final Report, "groundwater supplies generally are deemed superior to surface water supplies in terms of public health protection, technical simplicity, economy, and public acceptance."(48)

Unfortunately, groundwater is also a natural commons. Absent legal constraints, each user has an incentive to pump as much as he or she needs, even when the cumulative result is a rapid depletion or overdrafting of the groundwater aquifer. Here, again, the extent of the tragedy is enormous. Nationally, water users in the United States extract about seventy-five billion gallons of water per day from groundwater aquifers.(49) By comparison, the total national recharge is only sixty billion gallons of water per day.(50) Such overdrafting of aquifers can have adverse consequences to both the users of the groundwater and third parties. Overdrafting lowers the water table, forcing water users to pump the groundwater up greater distances at greater cost.(51) Any water extracted beyond the aquifer's annual recharge is lost to future use Oust as with the mining of nonrenewable resources such as petroleum).(52) Overdrafting of coastal aquifers can lead to salt water intrusion and the irreversible contamination of the aquifer.(53) Overdrafting also can lead to subsidence and desertification of the surface.(54) Because of the importance of groundwater to world agriculture, some believe that groundwater overdrafts are the single biggest threat to world food production.(55)

The Ogallala or High Plains Aquifer, which underlies portions of seven states in the central-south portion of the United States, is both the biggest aquifer in the United States and a good illustration of the tragic consequences of unconstrained groundwater withdrawals.(56) The Ogallala produces water for about a fifth of all irrigated land in the United States.(57) The Ogallala is also one of the most overdrafted aquifers in the United States. By 1990 groundwater supplies in the Texas portion of the Ogallala aquifer had dropped almost a quarter from early twentieth century levels.(58) In some parts of the aquifer, groundwater tables have dropped from six inches to three feet per year.(59) Some hydrologists predict that, at the current pace, withdrawals will deplete most of the aquifer during this century, leaving several million acres of farmland without a ready source of water.(60)

Worldwide, large portions of China, India, Pakistan, North Africa, and the Middle East are experiencing serious overdrafting problems.(61) In the late 1980s, Saudi Arabia pumped five times the amount of water from its groundwater aquifers as was naturally replenished into the aquifer.(62) Most experts estimate that water in Saudi Arabia aquifers will last only about another twenty-five to one hundred years.(63)

One might expect that the farmers and other water users who are dependent on groundwater would eagerly embrace limits on overall groundwater withdrawals. As just described, unconstrained groundwater use and the resulting overdrafts primarily injure the groundwater users themselves. As groundwater tables drop, pumping costs increase until groundwater users can no longer afford to pump the water.(64) At that point, the groundwater users must either find alternative sources of water (which today are typically not available), find a way of proceeding forward without water, or close up shop.(65) Between 1978 and 1989, about twenty percent of all the irrigated farmland overlying the Ogallala aquifer went out of production because the cost of withdrawing the groundwater from the aquifer increased so much as a result of overdrafting.(66) In some coastal areas of California and the southeastern United States, unconstrained groundwater use has led to salt water intrusion, threatening the entire groundwater resource.(67) The other major costs of groundwater overdrafting--surface subsidence and desertification--fall on overlying property owners, who again are frequently groundwater users.(68)

In a small fraction of cases, groundwater users from the same aquifer have united to restrict groundwater pumping. Some states also have taken action in light of groundwater problems (although frequently over the objections of groundwater users). Between 1980 and 1989, fifteen states adopted groundwater laws or policies addressing problems of overdraft.(69) But many states have not acted, including two of the largest groundwater using states in the nation--Texas and California.(70) When states have acted, moreover, they generally have addressed the problem far too late and ineffectively. Most states have put off addressing the problem until years of serious overdrafting have passed, and the resulting regulations often have been little more than window dressing. As the Western Water Policy Review Advisory Commission noted, "[a]chieving sustainable groundwater use remains one of the major water management challenges facing the West."(71) The international picture is no different. Few national governments have made a comprehensive effort to regulate groundwater overdrafting; many do not even require monitoring of groundwater extractions.(72)

One example that reveals the problems that states have confronted in addressing groundwater overdrafting is the Arizona Groundwater Management Act of 1980.(73) For years Arizona had dramatically overdrawn its major aquifers. However, farmers and other groundwater users opposed regulation until a state supreme court decision threatened to curtail some groundwater uses entirely,(74) and the federal government threatened to end its funding of the Central Arizona Project unless Arizona addressed its groundwater problems.(75) Even then, Governor Brace Babbitt had to intervene personally to get the warring factions of groundwater users to agree on state legislation.(76) Water observers have often praised the resulting statute for addressing the state's groundwater problems.(77) But in truth, the Groundwater Management Act does not require Arizona groundwater users to reduce their withdrawals of groundwater to an amount equal to the natural recharge of the aquifers until 2025--forty-five years after the original passage of the Act.(78) Furthermore, whether the standards of the Groundwater Management Act are tough enough to meet even that distant goal is questionable.(79)

C. Global Climate Change

The danger of global climate change presents a slightly different form of commons dilemma. Rather than taking something out of the commons, people are putting something in--[CO.sub.2] and other greenhouse gases. It also is not simply a narrow class of the population that is feeding the potential tragedy; virtually everyone is contributing to the problem. But global climate change is still a classic example of the tragedy of the commons. Because atmospheric use is free to all, businesses, individuals, and governmental entities internationally use it as a great waste repository, resulting in the current tremendous threat to the world's climatic system.

The potential adverse consequences of global warming are even greater than the dangers presented by depletion of the world's fisheries and groundwater aquifers. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, the most significant of the greenhouse gases, are now about thirty percent over preindustrial levels.(80) An independent scientific panel convened by the National Research Council estimates that the Earth's surface temperature already has increased between 0.7 and 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since the start of the twentieth century.(81) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that, without intervention, average global temperatures will further increase anywhere from two degrees to six and one half degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the next century.(82) If it occurs, such warming is likely to cause rising sea levels, which will inundate coastal areas, particularly in the southern hemisphere.(83) Also, warming could worsen droughts and rainstorms, cause more heat waves and floods, generally increase precipitation, shift climatic and agricultural zones, harm biodiversity, and negatively affect public health.(84)

Given the growing understanding of the risk of global climate change, one might think that the world's population would come to a rapid agreement on an effective solution. Indeed, the world has taken some action. At the 1992 Rio Conference, delegates from over 140 countries endorsed the Framework Convention on Climate Change.(85) Five years later, parties to that convention adopted the Kyoto Protocol, setting specific targets and timetables for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the twenty-four industrial countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and from the European countries of the former Soviet Union.(86)

No knowledgeable observer believes that the Kyoto Protocol will meet the risk of global climate change. First, many observers seriously doubt whether enough countries, including the United States, will ratify the Kyoto Protocol in order to bring it into effect.(87) Second, and far more importantly, most observers agree that the Kyoto Protocol was, at best, a quick political fix.(88) The Protocol does not constrain emissions of developing countries and, without such constraints, the Protocol is unlikely to make an effective cut in the emission of greenhouse gases.(89) The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that, even if all industrialized countries ultimately comply with the Kyoto Protocol, carbon emissions in the year 2010 will still be thirty-two percent greater than they were in 1990 (compared to a forty-four percent increase if the industrialized countries do not comply).(90)

Tremendous political obstacles stand in the way of an effective world solution. Despite the scientific evidence of global warming, the population of the United States--which would probably need to make the greatest sacrifice to effectively address the problem--is largely unconcerned about the issue. As recently as 1997, only slightly more Americans were worried a "great deal" about global warming (twenty-four percent) as were not worried at all (seventeen percent).(91) Moreover, the American public does not believe that the United States should take any action to address global warming unless all countries contribute equally to a solution. The Clinton Administration has promised not to seek Senate ratification of the Kyoto Protocol until developing nations agree to "substantial participation."(92) Although global warming is most likely to harm the developing world, developing countries do not believe that they have any responsibility to address the problem because the developed world has emanated the vast majority of historic greenhouse emissions.(93) Not only did developing countries successfully oppose being subjected to the restrictions of the Kyoto Protocol, they even killed a provision that would have let them voluntarily opt into the protocol.(94) Finding a formula for reducing and capping emissions that is acceptable to all nations is proving to be a Herculean task.(95)

III. UNDERSTANDING THE OBSTACLES TO SOLVING THE COMMONS

Why has it proven so difficult to adopt solutions to these commons tragedies? Why have people who would seemingly benefit from mandated solutions often actively opposed them? It is often tempting to blame the people themselves when they are locked in a political battle over fishing, groundwater use, or global climate change. It is also tempting to believe that those who are opposing a solution are selfish, shortsighted, anti-environmental, or overly focused on immediate material gain. But most people trapped in commons dilemmas are good people who want to do what is right for their community, for society at large, and for the environment.

In Song for a Blue Ocean, Carl Safina goes out of his way to give readers a sense for the morality of the fishermen who are the root of the overfishing problem.(96) Fisherman after fisherman in his book describe how they love the very fish that they are catching. These fishermen often label themselves conservationists and decry obviously destructive activities. Many of the fishermen throughout the book claim they would be among the frost to stop fishing, if they thought the fish were really in trouble. Farmers say the same thing about their water resources. People worldwide say the same thing about the climatic balance that nurtures and protects them.

If you believe these resource users, the problem is not the people locked in the commons dilemmas, but the situations in which they find themselves. When put in a commons dilemma, most of us behave in a similar fashion. To help understand and overcome the difficulties involved in gaining support for commons solutions, we must turn away from attribution of blame and look to recent research conducted by psychologists, economists, sociologists, and anthropologists both in the field and in experimental simulations on why people sometimes do not behave in their best interest.

Although each of my three examples has its own unique characteristics that make a solution difficult, they share three important features that make it difficult for people locked in tragic overuse to act "rationally" in trying to come up with an acceptable solution. First, solving each dilemma requires people to reduce the level of resource use that they historically have enjoyed. Second, each dilemma is characterized by significant scientific and social uncertainty. Finally, each dilemma involves an intertemporal trade-off: to what degree are people willing to sacrifice today in order to preserve resources for the future?

A. Framing: Losses Versus Gains

The first point may seem obvious. The tragedy would be easy to resolve if the user of a common resource did not have to sacrifice anything to avoid the tragedy of the commons. However, my premise is not simply that the tragedy is difficult to resolve because solutions involve giving up higher consumption today in order to preserve the resource for the future. In the cases that I've discussed, many "rational" resource users should find the necessary trade-off worthwhile. The problem is that most resource users view the trade-off as requiring them to give up a current right And most people will accept a high degree of risk to avoid giving up a current right.

Psychologists have long recognized that the framing of an action as either a gain or a loss can make a great difference.(97) In particular, people are more risk-averse when dealing with gains (they prefer sure payoffs to gambles) and are more willing to take risks when dealing with potential losses (they will risk much to avoid an otherwise sure loss). In evaluating proposed solutions to commons dilemmas, most resource users appear to start with their historic level of resource use and ask how the solution affects that level of use. Thus they see most proposed solutions, such as caps on use, as constituting losses rather than restricted gains. These solutions, in the eyes of the resource users, require the users to give up something that they currently have.(98) And as researchers have predicted, resource users are therefore willing to risk sizable future losses to avoid the sure immediate loss. Repeatedly, experimental simulations of commons dilemmas have found that participants have a harder time resolving the commons in a loss framework titan in a gains framework.(99) In real life, moreover, resource users believe that they have achieved theft historic level of resource use through their own industry and skills, strengthening the framing effect and making the resource users more willing to risk potentially catastrophic future losses to avoid a sure cutback in their current use of the resource.(100)

Governments make the problem worse where they recognize property rights in common access to a resource, as many states have done with groundwater. Property rights can help solve the tragedy of the commons when the rights result in the effective internalization of the cost of excessive harvesting, but property rights turn harmful when they reinforce a sense of entitlement to an unlimited harvest. Not only do such property rights reinforce the framing effect,(101) but they also can cause resource users, as a matter of fairness, to reject out of hand even the suggestion that they should reduce their current usage. Property rights are sensible and important societal tools, but in thinking about potential solutions to the tragedy of the commons, resource users often convert property rights from practical tools into absolute moral rights that prevent them from thinking carefully about the potential benefits of averting the tragedy.(102) Moreover, property rights may focus resource users on their individual interests rather than on total societal well being, undermining social norms of cooperation and reinforcing the very dichotomy between individual and social welfare that underlies the tragedy of the commons.(103)

The second problem that prevents people from thinking "rationally" about solutions to the tragedy of the commons is uncertainty. Two types of uncertainty often plague commons dilemmas. The first is scientific uncertainty regarding the current health of the resource, the impact of human actions on the resource, and the potential future of the resource. The second is social uncertainty regarding what is a fair or proper means of allocating the burden of trying to save the commons.

All three of my examples of commons dilemmas involve significant scientific uncertainty. All involve hidden resources. Fisheries are cloaked beneath the ocean. Groundwater is concealed beneath the surface of the Earth. Although we can see the results of climate change, we cannot see the actual climatic process and thus cannot see how our actions actually affect the climate. To varying degrees, moreover, science is uncertain about how grave a danger each resource actually faces. We probably know the most about groundwater, but often there is still considerable uncertainty regarding the safe yield of any particular aquifer. Extreme scientific uncertainty characterizes our knowledge of most fisheries; indeed, we do not know the status of 544 fish species in the United States--sixty percent of the fish that U.S. fisheries target commercially.(104) Although virtually all scientists agree that we are affecting the climate, there is sharp disagreement as to the nature and extent of the likely impact and its implications for the world's peoples.(105) In all of these settings, scientists often give the impression that there is even more uncertainty than there really is by qualifying their opinions. Scientists are trained to be cautious in their conclusions, and to many resource users, that cautiousness sounds a lot like uncertainty.

Unfortunately, when there is scientific uncertainty, people faced with a tough solution to a commons dilemma engage in tremendous wishful thinking. If scientists estimate that there are between one thousand and thirty thousand fish in any given population, most fishermen assume that there are thirty thousand fish in that population. The fishermen find confirmation for their views in their own personal experience, no matter how unsupportable. One good day of fishing will convince them that the more cautious estimates are wrong. The fact that fish are hard to catch the rest of the year serves as evidence merely that fish are getting smarter and learning to stay away from the boats.

Scientific simulations of fishery problems duplicate this phenomenon. As uncertainty increases regarding the exact size of a pool of fish, participants in fishery simulations increasingly overestimate the likely number of fish and boost their harvesting accordingly.(106) Uncertainty over the regeneration rate of the fish population leads to a similar jump in harvesting.(107) According to some psychologists, mathematic misperceptions might be at work. Because people often have found in the past that mean and variance are positively correlated, they mistakenly believe that increased variance justifies an upward shift in their estimate of the size of both current and future fish populations.(108) But a more likely explanation is that people use uncertainty to willingly fool themselves that the resource is in better shape and under less threat than it is in fact.(109) Once one resource user engages in wishful thinking, the wishful thinking might have a spiraling effect. When faced by ambiguity, people often look to the statements and behavior of others to see how to resolve that ambiguity. To the degree that some resource users either claim that the common pool is large or act as if it is large by using a large quantity of the resource, their behavior may signal to other resource users that they should resolve the ambiguity in pool size by assuming a high level of the resource.(110)

Assuming that resource users believe there is a problem, they must determine the fair means of allocating the burden of solving the tragedy. In each of my examples, this is difficult because the tragedy is asymmetric. People contribute in different degrees to the problem, and people benefit to different degrees from a solution. In these settings, there are multiple ways to allocate the burden of reducing resource use and no generally accepted societal norms for how to choose between the various allocations. What, for example, is the fairest means of limiting emission of greenhouse gases? All nations could reduce their 1990 emissions by an equal percentage on the principle that everyone should share the burden equally. All nations could be limited to a uniform per capita emission level on the principle that each nation should share in the resource equally. Those nations that would be hurt the most by global warming could undertake the bulk of the necessary reductions on the principle that those who benefit the most should make the largest contribution to a solution. A myriad of potential rules could be suggested, each with its own reasonable justification.

Unfortunately, where there are multiple fairness rules, people suffer from what some psychologists have labeled `egocentric interpretations of fairness.(111) People assume that the rule that benefits them is the fairest. As a result, agreeing on a common solution becomes difficult if not impossible.(112) In one group of fishing simulations, for example, researchers found that most participants were able to agree on equal reductions in catches where the dilemma was symmetric so that the participants benefited equally from cooperation.(113) If some participants balked at an equal reduction, the other participants were able to argue effectively that any approach other than an equal reduction was unfair; the dissenters quickly dropped their opposition when their position was criticized.(114) Where the dilemma was asymmetric, however, both egocentrism and harvesting levels increased.(115) Explaining the phenomenon to people, moreover, does not cure the problem. When told of the phenomenon, people assume that others' fairness perceptions, but not their own, suffer from an egocentric bias.(116) The problem, moreover, is not merely theoretical. As emphasized in Part II, biased interpretations of fairness have plagued efforts to address global climate change. Developing countries argue that the developed countries should resolve the problem because they are overwhelmingly "at fault" for current greenhouse gas levels and have more resources with which to address the problem. Developed countries argue that it is only fair that all nations share in the burden because all will benefit.(117)

The scientific and social uncertainties, when combined, also permit resource users to indulge in what some psychologists have called "self-enhancing attributional biases," or what I call a "halo effect" Because bad behavior is hard to define and determine, everyone assumes that they are more cooperative than they are in reality. In one experimental simulation of a fishery, for example, eighty-four percent of the participants thought that they had acted in a socially "cooperative" fashion, even though a review of the experiment's results showed that a majority of the participants had engaged in varying degrees of gluttonous behavior.(118) Seventy-seven percent of the participants thought they had been "cooperative," even though they had not left sufficient fish for an optimal fishery; thirty-two percent reported they had been "cooperative" even though they took more than their proportionate share of all the fish in the fishery.(119)

Not surprisingly, the halo effect frequently does not extend to people's evaluations of other resource users' behavior--particularly where the other resource users are outside the person's own community.(120) When the user of a resource believes that there is a human-based problem at all, the user blames the source of the problem on someone else. New England fishermen of blue fin tuna blame the decline in tuna stocks on long line fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico, who blame the problem on Mediterranean fishermen catching the blue fin tuna when the fish cross the Atlantic, who blame the problem back on the fishermen in New England.

This one-sided halo effect makes it even more difficult to solve the tragedy of the commons in two ways. First, the halo effect magnifies the egocentric interpretation of a fair solution.(121) When participants in a resources simulation are told that a shortage of the resource is attributable to a purely natural phenomenon, it is much easier to persuade them to limit their usage of the resource than when they are told that the shortage is attributable to a man-made cause.(122) Participants who believe that a shortage is the result of a purely natural cause generally think it is fair to assume part of the burden of the shortage. But when the participants believe that the shortage is man-made, they assume that somebody else is the true culprit and that the culprit should cure the problem. Second, when dealing with this type of a one-sided halo effect, it becomes much harder to appeal to people's altruism or conscience, because resource users already think that they are acting for the social good.(123) As discussed in Part IV, this problem is central to determining whether we can increase support for solutions to commons dilemmas by trying to change resource users' environmental views.

C. Intertemporal Tradeoffs

Getting resource users to come to grips with the tragedy of the commons is also difficult because the resource users must engage in an intertemporal tradeoff: should they accept a loss today in order to avoid a bigger loss at some point distant in the future? Homo sapiens are better than most mammals at considering the future consequences of their current actions-but not much better. We do care about the future, including the well-being of future generations.(124) But we suffer from a variety of temporal anomalies. In particular, individuals trapped in a commons dilemma appear to extravagantly discount the future consequences of their current actions.

I want to avoid the standard debate about whether or not private discount rates are appropriate for making intertemporal trade-offs involving environmental consequences. As others have discussed, there is tremendous disagreement as to whether market discount rates are socially proper, particularly when discounting across generations. Professor Cass Sunstein, for example, has argued that market discount rates do not fully account for effects on future generations, because future generations are not involved in the discounting decision.(125)

My concern is that people have difficulty making any sacrifice to avoid uncertain future losses. Several factors may be at work here. First, people tend to focus myopically on current costs in evaluating the wisdom of conservation measures. In the energy crunch years of the late 1970s and early 1980s a number of economists studied people's willingness to purchase energy efficient appliances.(126) It should have been relatively easy, one might think, for people to make rational trade-offs between the increase in the current purchase price of an appliance and the future energy savings they would enjoy by buying that appliance. Governmentally mandated labels supplied consumers with all the basic information necessary to make those trade-offs. But the studies found that people nonetheless were highly biased towards buying the cheaper, energy consumptive appliances. Depending on the particular study, the "applied discount rates"--the discount rates reflected in the actual purchases people were making--ranged from a low of 17% (a high discount rate, even for the inflation-prone 1970s) to an astronomical 243%.(127) Because people had trouble making complex discounting decisions, they focused on the most obvious statistic confronting them: how much they could save immediately by buying the cheaper appliance.(128) In a similar fashion, resource users confronted by a commons dilemma may decide that it is easiest to treat current harvesting decisions as if they were the last.(129)

Second, several experiments have shown that people often tend to minimize the risk of future losses, willingly gambling on the future, where the risk is characterized by significant uncertainty and avoiding the risk would require giving up something today.(130) Interestingly, this result is in marked contrast to the way that people generally respond to the tradeoff between current and future losses that are certain to occur. Psychologists have found that most people tend to employ lower discount rates when choosing between losses than when choosing between gains; indeed, some subjects demonstrate negative discounting when choosing between losses, preferring an immediate loss over a delayed loss of the same amount.(131) Distant losses, in short, appear to weigh far more heavily in peoples' decision making than distant gains. But where the loss is risky and uncertain, people often act as if there's virtually no future risk to them at all. Why the reversal?

A major explanation is that, when confronted by an uncertain future, most people assume that they will be able to avoid, reduce, or ameliorate future risks. We tend to be optimists about the future, at least when taking precautionary steps today is costly.(132) Part of the optimism is an unrealistic belief that tragedy will befall others but not ourselves. A number of experiments, for example, have shown that people faced with various health risks, such as cancer from radon exposure in their homes, optimistically discount the personal risk to them.(133) A greater factor is the optimistic belief that the risk is controllable. An everyday example is the interest rate on credit cards. When you last applied for a credit card, did you consider the interest rate that the credit card company will charge you if you fail to pay your bills on time or did you focus on whether you would receive frequent flyer mileage or get a discount at your local grocery store? Studies suggest that most consumers do not pay much attention to the interest rate charged on outstanding balances.(134) One of the reasons appears to be that most people underestimate their future credit card debts.(135) Or if they recognize that they will have future debts, they think they will be able to pay them off fairly quickly.

Psychological studies have found that this innate optimism about the future is even more pronounced in business settings.(136) Business managers, who have typically advanced to their current positions because they have been successful in overcoming problems in the past, believe that they can also effectively control the odds and magnitudes of future risks.(137) One suspects that fishermen and farmers, who have repeatedly confronted and overcome severe risks in their businesses, might be particularly prone to believe that they can avoid future risks.

We as a society have frequently reinforced resource users' natural sense of optimism by bailing out the people who take on risks and turn out to have bet wrong. Most groundwater users, if you talk to them about overdepleting their aquifer, will probably tell you "yes, it's a problem, but we don't worry too much about running out of groundwater because if we end up depleting our aquifer, the government will bail us out." Based on past experience, groundwater users believe that the; government will build a project to import needed water if the farmers ultimately run out of economically withdrawable groundwater. In a similar fashion, fishermen expect that the government will provide "transition relief" if a fishery is ultimately depleted.

A final reason for expecting high discounting of the future risk of resource tragedy is people's uncanny ability either to totally ignore problems that are not immediate and visible--what Sandra Postel has called the "out-of-sight, out-of-mind syndrome"(138)--or to see them in their rosiest light. The phenomenon here is similar, but slightly different from, people's overoptimism. When I agreed a year ahead of time to deliver the speech from which this Essay grew, I knew that I would have to spend considerable time researching, writing, and polishing the talk. But it seemed like a lot less work a year ahead of time than when I finally sat down to prepare the talk, and I quickly put the issue out of my mind because it was so far off in the future. If I had seriously thought about how much work would really be involved, I might have hesitated a bit more before agreeing to give the speech. I was not tricked by an overoptimistic belief that I could avoid the work or be more efficient than I had been in the past (although I probably hoped that I would be more efficient, despite all evidence to the contrary from my past efforts at writing speeches). I simply conveniently forgot how much work is really involved, the same way that women discount the pains of childbirth when they decide whether to have another baby. In a similar fashion, resource users may well find it easy to put future problems out of their mind. As Sandra Postel has noted, "[w]hen looking at say, a field of golden wheat, it can be difficult to imagine why crops like that can't just go on forever."(139) Even where resource users think about the problem, they are likely to "underimagine" the consequences of overusing the resource, placing the best face on the potential tragedy. Indeed, most resource users do not even have a past experience upon which to draw in trying to imagine the import to them of exhausting the fishery or aquifer. Resource users may find it even more difficult to imagine the full scope of the negative impact where future generations will suffer the consequences.(140)

IV. REFLECTIONS ON PROMOTING SOLUTIONS

After hearing these obstacles to getting user buy-in to the effective governance of the commons, some readers may conclude that in most cases the only realistic way of ending the tragedy of the commons is to find ways of imposing a solution from outside.(141) Many of the obstacles are immovable and will continue to make it difficult to get resource users to buy into solutions. "Mobilize the citizenry against the unjustifiable depletion of important resources," the political activists may therefore say. "Head to the courts," the legal activists may shout. And indeed environmental organizations over the past decade or two have used the Endangered Species Act(142) and other environmental legislation to motivate some resource users to give at least the appearance of trying to solve overuse of their resource. In the early 1990s, for example, the Sierra Club sued under the Endangered Species Act to restrict groundwater withdrawals from the Edwards Aquifer.(143) As the Sierra Club charged, overdrafting of the aquifer threatened the Texas blind salamander, which lives in the aquifer itself, and six other listed endangered species reliant on springs fed by the aquifer.(144) When the Sierra Club won the first round in court,(145) Texas responded by creating the Edwards Aquifer Authority to manage withdrawals from the aquifer and by instructing the Authority to reduce total withdrawals to 450,000 acre-feet per year.(146)

But for several reasons, we cannot look to courts or legislatures alone to provide effective and sustainable solutions to our remaining commons dilemmas. First, in international commons dilemmas like global warming, there is no outside entity that can impose a solution. Negotiation is the only way to achieve a solution. Second, even for domestic commons, outside imposition of a solution may often be unlikely. There may be no cause of action to support a lawsuit. The Endangered Species Act, which has proven the most useful legal mechanism to date, helps only where a listed species is threatened by the overuse of the commons. In many cases, moreover, it may be difficult to get nonresource users sufficiently interested in the commons dilemma that they will expend political or legal capital pursuing an outside solution.(147) Few environmental organizations, let alone the general citizenry, have shown much interest in the depletion of groundwater in the United States. Finally, outside solutions will fail unless there is effective implementation and compliance, and typically the government will need the support of the resource users; to get effective implementation and compliance.(148) Lawsuits and political pressure may be important--even crucial--in encouraging local resource users to discuss the problem they confront and to consider solutions to the problem. The Edwards Aquifer situation illustrates this catalytic value.(149) But for the reasons listed, society cannot give up efforts to persuade resource users themselves to support workable solutions.

A. Trying to Change Environmental Norms Is Not Sufficient

So what steps can be taken to turn resource users into supporters, rather than opponents, of commons solutions? Let me start provocatively by challenging the popular view that we can solve commons dilemmas, as well as a rash of other environmental problems, simply by changing people's environmental ethics. What we really need to do, a number of observers seem to suggest, is to get everyone to read Aldo Leopold and his Sand County Almanac.(150) If people developed a stewardship ethic toward the earth and all its inhabitants, the commons would never lead to tragedy. At first glance, inculcating a new environmental ethic seems immensely attractive. Enforcement problems would no longer loom ominously because people would naturally do what is right--indeed laws themselves might be unnecessary--and changing behavior through education rather than edict would fit "nicely into the model of the enlightened citizen, who makes his or her own decisions."(151) Indeed, the approach "has only one disadvantage: too often it does not work."(152) And there are reasons to believe that the approach would be particularly ineffective in resolving commons dilemmas.

A problem at the very outset is figuring out how to change resource users' environmental views. Psychologists simply do not know enough about the processes by which we form environmental norms to offer useful advice on how to change them.(153) What psychologists do know is that changes in norms, if they occur, are most likely to come from within the communities of resource users, not from the outside. And that will not be easy to achieve without first gaining an initial foothold of support from within the communities.

Even if we could change the environmental attitudes of resource users, we run squarely into another problem: experimental simulations of commons dilemmas suggest that a person's environmental attitude typically does not significantly affect the person's willingness to support a solution to commons dilemmas. In one set of fishing simulations, for example, researchers examined the degree to which environmental attitude affected participants' willingness to cooperate in keeping harvests down.(154) Environmental attitude was measured in a number of ways. Researchers 1) asked participants to complete questionnaires that measured the participants' concern for the environment; 2) asked participants how they would behave in various hypothetical situations (e.g., whether they would pick up someone else's litter); and 3) sought participants' help in environmental causes several weeks after a simulation (e.g., a Saturday recycling campaign).(155) No matter how environmental attitude was measured, it was not a statistically significant explanatory variable in the participants' behavior.(156)

Two things may be at work here that are relevant to resource users' willingness to support solutions to commons dilemmas.(157) First, as Hardin recognized in his original 1968 article, self-interest often swamps environmental concerns in commons dilemmas.(158) Many people have an amazing ability to shove their environmental values into a remote corner of their conscience when their economic interests are at stake. Researchers in the early 1980s, for example, found that residents of Perth, Australia, who had stated in a survey that people bear a personal duty to conserve energy, continued to consume high levels of electricity even when told of their high consumption and given tips on how to conserve.(159) Residents cut their electricity use only when researchers informed them of the inconsistency between their behavior and their reported conservation values, and even this reduction did not persist beyond two weeks.(160)

If the power of economics were the only factor at work, perhaps hope would still exist for solving the commons through attitudinal change. We could try to inculcate even stronger environmental values and constantly remind resource users of any inconsistency between their behavior and their environmental ethics. But a second, less remediable factor is at work in many commons: the scientific and social uncertainties outlined in Part III of this Essay permit resource users to justify a wide range of behaviors as consistent with their environmental beliefs. Scientific uncertainty allows resource users to believe that there is really no environmental problem.(161) Moreover, as Professor Wade-Benzoni and colleagues have observed, the "self-serving bias" allows individuals to experience the "illusion of consistency" between an attitude of concern for the environment and behavior that contradicts this concern.(162) Resource users, in short, resolve any dissonance between their behavior and their environmental attitudes by interpreting their behavior in the most favorable environmental light.(163)

Environmental attitudes can be influential in some contexts. We all know of situations where environmental education on issues such as recycling, littering, or "dolphin safe" tuna has affected people's behavior.(164) But in these situations, the cost of engaging in the beneficial behavior is relatively low, and there is no uncertainty concerning whether one is behaving consistently with the environmental norm. In some cases, people's environmental attitudes might even be strong enough to convince them to make significant sacrifices to preserve the environment, although it is hard to find significant, widespread examples.(165) In most commons dilemmas, however, the combination of compelling personal self-interest and scientific and social uncertainty will make it very difficult to garner support for meaningful solutions merely through changes in resource users' environmental attitudes--even assuming that we can influence those attitudes. To get resource users to support commons solutions, society must directly attack the impediments elaborated in Part III.

B. The Three Steps To a Solution

Getting resource users to support effective solutions to commons dilemmas typically will require three steps. The first step is convincing resource users that a problem exists and that the problem warrants a coercive solution. The second step is eliciting agreement among resource users regarding the general structure of that problem's solution. And the third and final step is getting resource users to agree on how to allocate the burden, if any, of that solution.

These three steps interact in ways that can be either helpful or problematic. If resource users focus prematurely on the last two steps, for example, they are likely to resist agreeing that there is a problem serious enough to justify a coercive solution. If fishermen assume that any solution to a dwindling stock of fish will involve dramatic reductions in the amount of fish they can catch, the fishermen are likely to look for evidence that the fish stock is not in bad shape. Whether consciously or subconsciously, they will engage in wishful thinking about the size of the stock. Concomitantly, if fishermen agree that there is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, they are more likely to think creatively about a solution and agree to share in the burden of a solution. As discussed earlier,(166) while resource users are likely to risk large, but uncertain future losses in order to avoid current costs, the temporal dynamic changes if resource users become convinced that the future loss is certain. While people heavily discount future losses that are uncertain, they use surprisingly low discount rates to evaluate the trade-off between current and future losses that are inescapable.(167) Increasing the perceived certainty of future losses therefore may dramatically increase resource users' willingness to sacrifice current income to avoid future losses.(168)

In a similar fashion, the more that resource users focus on how the burden of any solution will be allocated, the more difficult it will be for the resource users to develop an effective solution. Rather than thinking creatively about solutions that might minimize the total economic impact, each resource user will focus strategically instead on how to ensure that they bear as little of the burden as possible. To use the terminology of dispute resolution, the resource users will focus on "claiming" rather than on creating."(169)

In an ideal world, we might be able to compartmentalize and tackle each step seriatim--focusing first on whether there is a problem without raising concerns about how the problem might be resolved. Once we got agreement that a problem exists, we could then brainstorm potential solutions to the problem and only at the end tackle the difficult but inevitable distributional issues. Unfortunately, the three steps are inherently intertwined and cannot readily be separated.(170) Unless a resource user is exceptionally naive, he or she will recognize that the answer to earlier questions will affect the answer to later questions. If agreement is reached that a fishery is in decline because of overfishing, the likeliest solution will be some form of limitation on fishing. And the shape of a particular solution is likely to determine in part how the burden of that solution will be allocated. Dealing with the issues seriatim, therefore, will not suffice because resource users will be looking ahead, consciously or subconsciously, to the future issues.

We can structure discussions with resource users, however, to minimize the impact of allocative concerns on the resource users' willingness to agree that there is a serious problem that needs to be addressed and to creatively brainstorm potential solutions. Discussions might begin, for example, by everyone agreeing on general rules or norms for any ultimate allocation of burdens; some allocations might be ruled out as unacceptable at the very outset. Through such early agreements, we might effectively reduce and circumscribe resource users' concerns about how the resolution of other issues ultimately will affect them; this in turn can produce a more open discussion of the problem and potential solutions.(171) Once agreement has been reached on the problem and potential solutions, the dialogue can return to a more detailed consideration of the allocation issue.

1. Getting Resource Users to Recognize There Is a Problem

Getting resource users to agree that there is an important problem that must be solved requires addressing at least two current issues. First, we need to eliminate or at least reduce the scientific uncertainty that currently permits resource users to engage in unjustifiably wishful thinking. Second, we need to find a means of reducing resource users' deep discounting of future losses. As discussed in Part III, the two problems are interrelated. One of the reasons why resource users substantially discount future losses is because the losses appear to be uncertain.

a. Reducing Uncertainty

Perhaps the most obvious means of trying to eliminate the uncertainty is to devote more resources to scientific research into the health and dynamics of threatened commons.(172) Financial support for basic environmental research in the United States is shockingly low. Without more research on fisheries, groundwater resources, and other resources involved in commons dilemmas, the state of these resources will remain highly uncertain.

But more research by itself may not eliminate the uncertainty that currently undermines efforts to solve commons dilemmas. First, uncertainty will inevitably plague even relatively exhaustive commons research. No one, for example, should expect that scientists will conclusively prove a connection between current emissions of greenhouse gases and current climatic conditions or know the exact health of a particular fish stock. Unfortunately, uncertainty is inherent in environmental science. The most that we might expect from scientific research in many settings is scientific agreement that there is a significant risk of a particular catastrophe such as global warming. But given the temporal optimism discussed in Part III, the risk of a commons tragedy, no matter how high, may not convince many resource users of the need for immediate and costly action to avert the risk.

Second, even if scientists could eliminate many of the inherent uncertainties in their research, new scientific information may not change the views of resource users. Distant future events may inevitably seem uncertain to resource users, no matter what scientists predict. As psychologists have noted, "uncertainty is encapsulated in any future outcome."(173) Errors in past scientific predictions also may give resource users a cognitive justification for discounting the credibility of current forecasts.(174) Moreover, resource users might pick and choose information from scientific studies to reaffirm their existing belief that their resource is not threatened. In one famous experiment examining students' views on the death penalty, researchers found that people with strong opinions on complex social issues are inclined to assimilate empirical studies in a biased fashion, accepting at face value data and other findings that support their opinions while critiquing and discounting those data and findings that conflict with their opinions.(175) When forty-eight undergraduates were exposed to empirical studies on the death penalty, the undergraduates' views became more, not less, polarized.(176) When resource users have already formed strong views concerning the condition of their resource, "biased assimilation" may similarly undermine efforts to convince the resource users of threats to their resource.(177)

While recognizing these obstacles, we cannot give up the effort to convince resource users that future catastrophe is certain enough to justify solving commons dilemmas. Each new scientific study makes it harder for resource users to ignore reality and thus brings us closer to a solution. To maximize the value of additional scientific research, however, we must also improve the way in which environmental research is communicated to resource users. Today most scientists leave the interpretation of their research to the decision makers. This permits decision makers to interpret the data in the rosiest possible light, even when unwarranted, and it allows spokesmen for various interests to spin the data to promote their own agendas. Furthermore, scientists often are extremely cautious in how they present their studies, emphasizing the uncertainties and assumptions of their work. Indeed, the best scientists are often the most cautious. As already discussed, this leads resource users to discount the scientific research that is antithetical to the users' perceived reality.

Encouraging scientists to become active advocates of solving commons problems, while tempting, is probably neither workable nor desirable. First, such advocacy arguably runs counter to two of the major norms central to our society's concept of the scientific process: disinterestedness, which cautions scientists to put aside all biases in conducting their investigations, and organized skepticism, which encourages scientists to scrutinize and critique all findings.(178) Even if active advocacy does not actually violate these norms, it can give the appearance of violating them. Thus, academic and scientific institutions affirmatively discourage activism, and any scientist engaging in activism may risk not advancing in his or her career. Second, for similar reasons, scientists who today engage in active advocacy risk undermining the credibility of their work in the eyes of anyone not inclined to accept it. As psychologists have documented, people appear naturally prone to reject views contrary to their own as products of the other person's personal biases.(179) Perceived violations of the norms of science may provide resource users with confirmation that the researcher is biased and give interest representatives an easy means to undermine the researcher's findings.

A less risky means of ensuring that resource users cannot downplay scientific findings is to provide an objective forum for interpreting scientific findings. Governmental agencies cannot play this role, for their interpretation of the data is quickly written off as driven by the agencies' agendas. What many commons disputes need is something akin to, but more visible and transparent than, the National Academy of Sciences, where committees of scientists can review the relevant scientific evidence and develop policy-relevant recommendations regarding that evidence. In the global climate change arena, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change arguably plays this role.(180) Similar scientific bodies for fisheries, groundwater, and other commons could make it more difficult for resource users consciously or subconsciously to assume that there is less scientific consensus and certainty than actually exists.

b. Reducing Temporal Discounting

An equally important goal is to find ways of overcoming resource users' discounting of future risks and of forcing them to take the problems of commons overuse as seriously as they take the cost of eliminating that overuse. One possible means of doing this would be to try to make future risks more visceral to resource users so they see the need for current sacrifices. By helping users to visualize future risk, we may be able to shrink the temporal distance between current actions and future disasters and reduce the psychological discounting discussed in Part III.(181) Visualization, however, will require us to go beyond data to analogies, to pictures, and to teaching people exactly what it will mean if a fishery is closed because of overuse, if groundwater users must fallow or dry-farm their land because groundwater has become too costly or contaminated, or if global warming modifies disease vectors in North America. Proposed solutions to commons dilemmas often trigger fundamental fears of resource users--in particular, the fear that the solution will rob the resource user of control over his livelihood and prevent the resource user from bringing in necessary income. Portraying a vivid picture of the future can help people see beyond these present concerns and fear the furore.(182)

c. Focusing On Present Cost

One means of trying to overcome simultaneously the problems of both uncertainty and temporal discounting is to focus on the current drawbacks of an unconstrained commons. Long before a resource is destroyed, overuse of the resource is likely to generate serious costs. Given the risk that a fishery or groundwater aquifer will be depleted, for example, banks may stop loaning money to fishermen or farmers. Catching fish or pumping groundwater may become more expensive as fish become harder to find and groundwater must be pumped from a greater depth. Each of these costs of overuse is definite, rather than uncertain, and immediate, rather than distant. Resource users, therefore, may decide that these costs provide a more compelling reason than the risk of even a future catastrophe to find a solution to the commons dilemma.

2. Finding Effective and Sustainable Solutions

Once resource users become convinced that there is a problem that needs to be addressed, much of the resistance to solutions should disappear. Shaping creative and responsive solutions, however, will still be important in both overcoming remaining barriers to an agreement and reducing the overall cost of the solution to resource users.

A key starting point is to emphasize to resource users that maintaining the status quo is a choice no different than any action that they might take. Inertia has a powerful psychological influence. To most people, maintaining the status quo is the presumed natural position against which any other action must be justified. In commons dilemmas, resource users therefore view any use restrictions as involving an immediate loss (because the status quo is used as the framework). As discussed in Part III, this encourages them to gamble that the status quo will not lead to a larger future loss. By emphasizing a different starting point--for example, no use of the resource--proponents of a solution may be able to break resource users out of the loss framework and place all potential decisions, including maintenance of the status quo, on a level playing field. Because the status quo seems so comfortable, convincing resource users to shift their framework will not be easy, but it is possible.

Solutions that are attentive to both the business and cultural needs of resource users are also likely to be more readily accepted. For example, in the global warming context, early proposals to immediately and dramatically reduce emissions ignored the capital cycle of the American energy sector and of other industries with high emissions of greenhouse gases. Putting off the major reductions until a slightly later date can significantly reduce the cost of compliance as well as change the framing of the impact without seriously reducing the ultimate benefits of the solution.(183)

Solutions must also recognize that many professions, such as fishing and farming, are more than simply ways of making money. For example, it is often assumed that one kind of regulation will fit all fisheries. But there are a myriad of factors that attract people to fishing, and each fishery offers a slightly different permutation of attractions, based on both the physical characteristics and traditional culture of that fishery. Members of some fisheries, for example, are motivated by the lure of competition; they like the competition against the ocean, the competition against the fish, and the competition against other fishers. Members of other fisheries are motivated by independence. They like the ability to fish when they want One solution to fishery problems--the setting of individual quotas (i.e., telling each individual fisherman how much he can catch in one year and letting him catch it whenever he wants)--might work well for fishermen who are motivated by independence. In fact, fishermen motivated by independence might favor having quotas, because quotas actually give them more independence. With quotas, each fisherman does not have to worry about trying to catch the fish before anyone else does. Instead, the fisherman has all year, whenever he wants, to catch the fish. But individual quotas will not work in a fishery where the fishermen are motivated by competition. There we must find a solution that fits within the cultural melee of that particular fisher.(184)

The most acceptable solutions also are likely to maximize the freedom of resource users and, in the case of fisheries and groundwater aquifers, involve local control of the resource. Researchers have found that resource users employ a number of criteria in evaluating proposed solutions. One criterion is effectiveness: will the solution succeed in avoiding overuse?(185) Another critical criterion is freedom.(186) Even in a crisis, resource users try to retain some degree of personal control over their resource decisions.(187) Moreover, where resource users defer to a regulatory authority, they prefer authorities who they trust and know, with whom they share common attributes, and who treat them with dignity and respect.(188) In most cases, that means local regulation. Nevertheless, there is a potential tension here because local regulation and retained freedom may increase the chances for defection and thus decrease the chances of success. But some degree of trade-off may be necessary.

Finally, market mechanisms often will be an essential element of an effective solution. Regardless of how the burden of a solution is ultimately allocated, there are likely to be benefits from trade. Some people will want the right to acquire more of the resource. Others will freely give up some of their rights for a sufficiently high price. Market mechanisms--such as transferable quotas, water transfers, or tradeable emission rights--can provide added value to both groups, making the pain of a solution more acceptable. Market mechanisms also provide resource users with additional freedom because they can use the market to increase their individual use.

Not surprisingly, most effective solutions to commons dilemmas have incorporated some type of a market mechanism. Consider, for example, the Texas legislature's response to lawsuits involving the overdrafting of the Edwards Aquifer.(189) Having concluded that groundwater withdrawals must be reduced, the legislature faced the difficult question of how to allocate the reductions. The legislature ultimately concluded that, for equitable and political reasons, reductions must be allocated proportionately to current withdrawals: all current users should cut back their withdrawals by an equal percentage.(190) But this allocation was unlikely to be efficient. Some users easily could manage with significantly less water, while other users would find it costly to cut current withdrawals at all. To ensure efficiency, the legislature linked the proportionate reductions with the creation of a water market through which those who found it easiest to reduce groundwater withdrawals could sell their groundwater rights to those who needed all the groundwater they could get.(191)

3. Allocating the Burden

Even if resource users agree that there is a problem that needs to be addressed and develop efficient solutions, the daunting task of getting the resource users to agree to a particular allocation of the burden of the solutions will remain. Many commons negotiations founder on exactly this issue. Because of egocentric interpretations of fairness and halo effects, resource users are likely to start from quite different perspectives on the fairness of various solutions. Thankfully, however, experimental studies have shown that dialogues among resource users can help overcome such self-serving interpretations of fairness.(192) As a resource user learns more about other users' perceptions of fairness--and the reasons for those perceptions--the user's own view of the fairest result grows less biased.(193) These studies suggest that once all the users of a commons come together, start talking, and learn what others believe to be fair, they adjust their own perceptions of fairness to a less biased position. The process of dialogue is neither easy nor speedy, but these studies give us some hope that constructive dialogue can help resource users ultimately agree on a solution.

IV. CONCLUSION

After reading this Essay, a scientist friend who is actively involved in global climate change proceedings told me that the Essay was overly optimistic (i.e., that the Essay actually understates the obstacles involved in getting people to recognize that a problem exists and then agreeing to a solution). I hope that my friend's impression is not true. Global climate change and the depletion of the world's fisheries and groundwater aquifers are simply too critical not to find effective solutions. To solve these problems, however, we will need to focus greater attention on how to motivate the human imagination so that we see and care about the risks, how to be creative in structuring new and workable solutions, and how to overcome the inevitable fight over who should bear the brunt of the burden. And we will need to keep plugging away, no matter how pessimistic we might become at some stages of the effort.

(1) Garrett Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons, 162 SCIENCE 1243 (1968).

(2) ELINOR OSTROM, GOVERNING THE COMMONS: THE EVOLUTION OF INSTITUTIONS FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION 2 (1990) (noting that Aristotle observed that "[w]hat is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Everyone thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest" (quoting ARISTOTLE, THE POLITICS AND THE CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS 33 (Steven Everson ed. & Benjamin Jowett trans., 1996))).

(3) See OSTROM, supra note 2, at 58-102 (analyzing long-enduring local management institutions); Donald R. Leal, Community-Run Fisheries: Avoiding the "Tragedy of the Commons," 19 POPULATION & ENV'T 225 (1998) (discussing the effectiveness of some fishing communities in avoiding overexploitation). For proof that not all indigenous communities effectively overcome the tragedy of the commons, however, see Craig T. Palmer, FoLk Management, "Soft Evolutionism," and Fishers' Motives: Implications for the Regulation of the Lobster Fisheries of Maine and Newfoundland, 52 HUM. ORG. 414, 415 (1993) (discussing lobster fisheries along the northwest coast of Newfoundland, where indigenous management practices have not prevented severe depletion of lobster supplies).

(4) See Marilyn B. Brewer & Roderick M. Kramer, Choice Behavior in Social Dilemmas: Effects of Social Identity, Group Size, and Decision Framing, 50 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 543, 549 (1986) (testing group identity); Robert C. Cass & Julian J. Edney, The Commonz Dilemma: A Simulation Testing the Effects of Resource Visibility and Territorial Division, 6 HUM. ECOLOGY 371, 378 (1978) (testing visibility of resource use); Dale O. Jorgenson & Anthony S. Papciak The Effects of Communication, Resource Feedback, and Identifiability on Behavior in a Simulated Commons, 17 J. EXPERIMENTAL SOC. PSYCHOL. 373, 382-84 (1981) (testing feedback, visibility of resource use, and communication); Peter Kollock, Social Dilemmas: The Anatomy of Cooperation, 24 ANN. REV. SOC. 183, 194-95 (1998) (testing communication and group identity).

The cultural universality of the tragedy of the commons also has been questioned. Although commons dilemmas appear to lead to tragic results in most societies, one experiment has suggested that some Southeast Asian cultures may reach more cooperative results. See Craig D. Parks & Anh D. Vu, Social Dilemma Behavior of Individuals from Highly Individualistic and Collectivist Cultures, 38 J. CONFLICT RESOL. 708, 716 (1994) (finding more cooperative behavior among recent Vietnamese immigrants to the United States, but suggesting that the cooperation might not persist when Southeast Asians compete against individuals from other cultures).

(5) See Hardin, supra note 1, at 1244; see also OSTROM, supra note 2, at 1-8 (outlining theoretical models of the tragedy of the commons); ELINOR OSTROM ET AL., RULES, GAMES, AND COMMON-POOL RESOURCES 5 (1994) (explaining why, in the absence of communication and rules established for the use of the common pool resource, suboptimal use is likely to result); C. Scott Gordon, The Economic Theory of a Common. Property Resource: The Fishery, 62 J. POL. ECON. 124, 130-31 (1954) (explaining that, in a fishing commons, the competition among fishermen will dissipate the rent yielded by the fishery resource and result in suboptimal harvesting).

(6) See, e.g., Cass & Edney, supra note 7, at 378 (finding that assigning resource users to individual territories significantly improved resource management); Kollock, supra note 7, at 203 (citing experimental studies in which individuals did better at managing theft own private parcels than harvesting as a group, but also noting potential limitations of privatization); Diane K. Martichuski & Paul A. Bell, Reward, Punishment, Privatization, and Moral Suasion in a Commons Dilemma, 21 J. APPLIED SOC. PSYCHOL. 1356, 1365 (1991) (finding privatization to be the most effective approach in maximizing total harvest, extending the life of the commons, and protecting it from ruin).

(7) See Gary D. Libecap, Unitization, in 3 THE NEW PALGRAVE DICTIONARY OF ECONOMICS AND THE LAW 641 (Peter Newman ed., 1998) (discussing unitization of oil and gas reservoirs).

(8) See OSTROM, supra note 2, at 8-11 (discussing the arguments for coercive regulation of commons).

(9) See id. at 61-142 (providing examples of self-governance by local communities); Elinor Ostrom, Self-Governance of Common-Pool Resources, in 3 THE NEW PALGRAVE DICTIONARY OF ECONOMICS AND THE LAW, supra note 7, at 424 (same).

(10) See Bert Klandermans, Persuasive Communication: Measures to Overcome Real-life Social Dilemmas, in SOCIAL DILEMMAS: THEORETICAL ISSUES AND RESEARCH FINDINGS 307, 313 (Wim B.G. Liebrand et al. eds., 1992).

(11) See id. at 312 (emphasizing that solutions will only be supported when individuals believe that a sufficient number of people will obey to make the solutions effective); see also Hans-Joachim Mosler, Self-Dissemination of Environmentally-Responsible Behavior: The Influence of Trust in a Commons Dilemma Game, 13 J. ENVTL. PSYCHOL. 111, 120 (1993) (finding that mutual restrictions are more likely in a commons dilemma where commitments are public and verifiable).

(12) See Palmer, supra note 3, at 415 (finding that vulnerability of stocks under a self-regulated fishery is a major motivation for fishermen to support governmental restrictions).

(13) See Jonathan Baron & James Jurney, Norms Against Voting for Coerced Reform, 64 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL 347, 347 (1993) (noting that, for many commons solutions, it is in the interest of most people to support the reform, even if it is not in their interest to cooperate in the absence of coercion"); cf. Douglas D. Heckathorn, Collective Action and the Second-Order Free-Rider ProbLem, 1 RATIONALITY & SOC'Y 78, 81 (1989) (arguing that second-order cooperation is more robust than first-order cooperation).

(14) Cf. Kollock, supra note 4, at 200 (noting that cooperation increases in commons dilemmas when people "can have a noticeable effect on the outcome").

(15) See Charles D. Samuelson et al., Individual and Structural Solutions to Resource Dilemmas in Two Cultures, 47 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 94, 102 (1984) (finding that individuals will vote to eliminate free access to a common resource when the resource is being overused and threatened with depletion).

(16) Id.; see also David M. Messick et al., Individual Adaptations and Structural Change as Solutions to Social Dilemmas, 44 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 294, 305 (1983) (finding that extreme overuse led 70% of the participants to vote to eliminate free access, even though extreme overuse did not lead to voluntary reductions in individual harvests); C.G. Rutte & H.A.M. Wilke, Social Dilemmas and Leadership, 14 EUR. J. SOC. PSYCHOL. 105, 118 (1983) (finding that where individuals recognize they are overusing a common resource, they are more likely to opt for a group leader in order to manage the commons).

(17) See LISA SPEER ET AL., HOOK, LINE, AND SINKING: CRISIS IN MARINE FISHERIES 123-24 (1997).

(18) See generally CARL SAFINA, SONG FOR A BLUE OCEAN (1998) (discussing the author's experiences and observations while traveling among the world's fishing communities).

(19) UNITED NATIONS FOOD & AGRIC. ORG., STATE OF THE WORLD'S FISHERIES AND AQUACULTURE 8-11 (1995).

(20) Kimberly A. Wade-Benzoni, Thinking About the Future: An Intergenerational Perspective on the Conflict and Compatibility Between Economic and Environmental Interests, 42 AM. BEHAV. SCIENTIST 1393, 1395 (1999).

(21) National Marine Fisheries Serv., 1999 National Overview, in OUR LIVING OCEANS: REPORT ON THE STATUS OF UNITED STATES LIVING MARINE RESOURCES 10, 10 (1999).

(22) Id. at 13. According to NMFS, moreover, the stocks with low population levels include some of the nation's most valuable fishery resources. Id. at 38-39.

(23) Victor R. Restrepo et al., The Precautionary Approach: A New Paradigm, or Business as Usual?, in OUR LIVING OCEANS, supra note 21, at 1, 2.

(24) See MICHAEL HARRIS, LAMENT FOR AN OCEAN 205-20, 242-61 (1998) (discussing the cost of the closure); see also Seaweb, Background: Global Fisheries (visited Feb. 4, 2000) <http.j/www.seaweb.org/background/book/fishery.html> (same).

(25) National Marine Fisheries Serv., supra note 21, at 16; see also Carl Safina, The World's Imperiled Fish, SCI. AM., Nov. 1995, at 46, 48.

(26) Safina, supra note 25, at 49.

(27) Id.

(28) OSTROM, supra note 2, at 144-146, 149-57, 173-78; Leal, supra note 3, at 228-33.

(29) Fishery Conservation and Management Act, Pub. L. No. 94-265, 90 Stat. 331 (codified as amended at 16 U.S.C. [subsections] 1801-1883 (1994 & Supp. IV 1998)).

(30) Id. [sections] 1821-1827 (1994).

(31) Id. [sections] 1852 (1994 & Supp. IV 1998). For a useful description of the Magnuson Act, see MICHAEL J. BEAN & MELANIE J. ROWLAND, THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONAL WILDLIFE LAW 148-92 (3d ed. 1997).

(32) Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-297, 110 Stat. 3559 (amending 16 U.S.C. [subsections] 1801-1883 (1994 & Supp. IV 1998)).

(33) 16 U.S.C. [sections] 1854(c)(4) (Supp. IV 1998).

(34) BEAN & ROWLAND, supra note 31, at 192.

(35) Id. As a result of pressure from fishing interests, for example, Congress in 1996 established a temporary moratorium on new individual fishing quotas. See 16 U.S.C. [sections] 1853(d) (Supp. IV 1998).

(36) See BEAN & ROWLAND, supra note 31, at 192 (staling that regional councils have been criticized for `institutionaliz[ing] special interests in fishery management,' resulting in allowable catch quotas that are not biologically based but instead attempt to satisfy all those who want to fish" (quoting CENTER FOR MARINE CONSERVATION ET AL, GLOBAL MARINE BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: A STRATEGY FOR BUILDING CONSERVATION INTO DECISION MAKING 263 (Elliott Norse ed., 1993))).

(37) Center for Marine Conservation, Missing the Boat: How they Performed (visited Mar. 27, 2000) <http://www.cmc-ocean.org/missingboat/performed.php3>.

(38) See National Marine Fisheries Serv., supra note 21, at 39 ("Where fisheries are overcapitalized and performing poorly in economic terms, as many U.S. fisheries are, short-term economic concerns have tended to receive undue weight relative to the steps needed to cut back harvests--sometimes for many years--and achieve long-term biological and economic goals."); see also id, at 16 (noting that, despite fishery management plans in the Northeastern United States, overexploitation has occurred in many cases "and efforts to rebuild have generally not yet succeeded in fully restoring depleted stocks").

(39) Id. at 28-29, 32.

(40) Id. at 29-30, 32.

(41) See Center for Marine Conservation, supra note 37.

(42) See id.

(43) WATER IN CRISIS: A GUIDE TO THE WORLD'S FRESH WATER RESOURCES 13 tbl. 2.1 (Peter H. Gleick ed., 1993); Stephen McCaffrey, The Coming Water Crisis: International Legal and Institutional Responses, 21 VERMONT L.J. 803, 805 (1997).

(44) Payal Sampat, Groundwater Shock, WORLD WATCH, Jan-Feb. 2000, at 10, 10.

(45) Groundwater is particularly important to farmers and rural communities, furnishing 95% of the drinking water for rural residents and almost 45% of the water used for irrigated farmland. Id.

(46) PETER H. GLEICK, THE WORLD'S WATER, 1998-1999: THE BIENNIAL REPORT ON FRESHWATER RESOURCES 245 (1998). This book as well as WATER IN CRISIS, supra note 42, contains general statistics on world and national groundwater.

(47) GLEICK, supra note 46, at 245.

(48) WESTERN WATER POLICY REVIEW ADVISORY COMM'N, WATER IN THE WEST: CHALLENGE FOR THE NEXT CENTURY 3-8 (1998).

(49) Barton H. Thompson, Jr., Water Allocation and Protection. A United States Case Study, in EARTH SYSTEMS: PROCESSES AND ISSUES 476, 488 (W.G. Ernst ed., 2000).

(50) Id. at 488.

(51) Id. at 488-89; see also Benjamin R. Vance, Comment, Total Aquifer Management: A New Approach to Groundwater Protection, 30 U.S.F. L. REV. 803, 804-05 (noting that overdrafting can lead to higher energy costs for well owners who must pump from deeper and deeper beneath the surface).

(52) Patricia A. Maurice, The Hydrologic Cycle, in EARTH SYSTEMS: PROCESSES AND ISSUES, supra note 49, at 135, 144.

(53) Id.; Thompson, supra note 49, at 488-89.

(54) Id. at 489.

(55) Sandra Postel, When the World's Wells Run Dry, WORLD WATCH, Sept.-Oct 1999, at 30, 30.

(56) Id. at 32.

(57) Id.

(58) WATER IN CRISIS, supra note 43, at 59; Gerard Bonnis & Ronald Steenblin, Water, Agriculture, and the Environment, OECD OBSERVER, June 15, 1998, at 28. In some portions of the aquifer, supplies declined by as much as 5096. DAVID CASH, HARVARD GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT PROJECT, ASSESSING AND ADDRESSING CROSS-SCALE ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS: INFORMATION AND DECISION SYSTEMS FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF THE HIGH PLAINS AQUIFER 1 (1998).

(59) JOSEPH SAX ET AL., LEGAL CONTROL OF WATER RESOURCES: CASES AND MATERIALS 8 (2d ed. 1991).

(60) Thompson, supra note 49, at 488.

(61) Id. at 489, Postel, supra note 55, at 30.

(62) WATER IN CRISIS, supra note 43, at 59 (also noting that projected water demands suggest that groundwater reserves will have dropped 42% between 1985 and 2010).

(63) See Thompson, supra note 49, at 489.

(64) See Postel, supra note 55, at 33.

(65) Id.

(66) Id. at 32, 34; see also SANDRA A POSTEL, LOST OASIS: FACING WATER SCARCITY 33 (1992) (noting loss of a third of the irrigated acreage in Northwest Texas); WATER IN CRISIS, supra note 43, at 69 (noting loss of irrigated farmland due to increased pumping costs). For similar masons, up to a quarter of India's grain harvest may be in jeopardy. Postel, supra note 55, at 33.

(67) See Gordon Smith, Sea Water Seeps: Water Wars Rage, SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, Jan. 8, 1995, at A-1 (discussing salt water incursion in the Salinas Valley of California).

(68) See Thompson, supra note 49, at 489.

(69) William Blomquist, Exploring State Differences in Groundwater Policy Adoptions, 1980-1989, PUBLIUS, Spring 1991, at 101, 102.

(70) Texas, alone among the United States, continues to follow a rule of "absolute ownership" that permits overlong owners to pump to their hearts' content. See Sipriano v. Great Spring Waters of Am., 1 S.W.3d 75, 80 (Tex. 1999) (reaffirming the court's adherence to the common law rule of capture, which allows a landowner to pump as much groundwater as she chooses without liability to neighboring water users). Although California technically proscribes groundwater overdrafting, weak enforcement mechanisms continue to lead to considerable overdrafting in the Central Valley and other portions of the state. See City of Los Angeles v. City of San Fernando, 537 P.2d 1250, 1307 (Cal. 1975) (holding that there is no right to appropriate new groundwater if aquifer is in state of overdraft); ARTHUR L. LITTLEWORTH & ERIC L. GARNER, CALIFORNIA WATER 49-51 (1995) (discussing quantitative limits on California groundwater rights); Vance, supra note 51, at 810 (noting that California overdraft averages two million acre-feet per year).

(71) WESTERN WATER POLICY REVIEW ADVISORY COMM'N, supra note 48, at 3-6.

(72) Postel, supra note 55, at 30.

(73) ARIZ. REV. STAT. ANN. [subsections] 45411 to 45-636 (1994 & Supp. 1999).

(74) See Farmers Inv. Co. v. Bettwy, 558 P.2d 14, 19 (Ariz. 1976) (narrowly restricting the location where groundwater could be used).

(75) Jon L. Kyl, The 1980 Arizona Groundwater Management Act: From Inception to Current Constitutional Challenge, 53 U. COLO. L REV. 471, 480 (1981-82).

(76) Desmond D. Connall, Jr., A History of the Arizona Groundwater Management Act, 1982 ST. L.J. 313, 330.

(77) See, e.g., Philip R. Higdon & Terence W. Thompson, The 1980 Arizona Groundwater Management Code, 1980 ARIZ. ST. L.J. 621, 666 (touting the Act as a "remarkable achievement").

(78) See ARIZ. REV. STAT. [sections] 45-562(A) (1994 & Supp. 1999).

(79) See SAX ET AL., supra note 59, at 505-06; Robert J. Glennon, "Because That's Where the Water Is": Retiring Current Water Uses W Achieve the Safe-Yield Objective of the Arizona Groundwater Management Act, 33 ARIZ. L. REV. 89, 93-101 (1991).

(80) Stuart Eizenstat, Stick with Kyoto: A Sound Start on Global Warming, FOREIGN AFF., May/June 1998, at 119, 119.

(81) Laura Tangley, So It's Not the Humidity: Experts Agree that the Planet's Getting Warmer, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, Jan. 24, 2000, at 49, 49.

(82) Eizenstat, supra note 80, at 119.

(83) Id.

(84) See generally STEPHEN HENRY SCHNEIDER, LABORATORY EARTH: THE PLANETARY GAMBLE WE CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE (1997) (providing scientific information on global warming).

(85) Framework Convention on Climate Change, May 9, 1992, 31 I.L.M. 849 (1992); see Ved D. Nanda, The Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change and the Challenges to its Implementation: A Commentary, 10 COLO. J. INT'L ENVTL. L. & POL'Y 319, 321 (1999).

(86) Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, Dec. 10, 1997, 37 I.L.M. 22 (1998); see Richard N. Cooper, Toward a Real Global Warming Treaty, FOREIGN AFF., March/April 1998, at 66, 67; Nanda, supra note 85, at 321.

(87) Hermann E. Ott, The Kyoto Protocol: Unfinished Business, ENVIRONMENT, July 17, 1998, at 16, 18.

(88) See Henry D. Jacoby et al., Kyoto's Unfinished Business, FOREIGN AFF., July/August 1998, at 54, 55.

(89) Id.; see also Nanda, supra note 85, at 332-33 (indicating that developing countries are expected to account for more than 75% of the increase in carbon emissions between 1990 and 2020); Cooper, supra note 86, at 67-68 (arguing that reducing carbon emissions to levels that will stabilize the amount of greenhouse, gases in the atmosphere will require efforts by developing, as well as developed countries).

(90) Carbon Emissions Predicted to Increase Substantially by 2020, DOE Report Says, 21 Int'l Env't Rep. (BNA) 439, 439 (Apr. 29, 1998).

(91) Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, The Psyhology of Global Climate Change, 1999 ILL. L. REV. (forthcoming) (citing a November 1997 survey by the Pew Center for People and the Press).

(92) Id. (citing Pew Center survey in which 7096 of American respondents believed that all countries, regardless of wealth, should make the same emission reductions); see also Jacoby et al., supra note 88, at 64 (describing the Clinton Administration's position).

(93) See Nanda, supra note 85, at 329.

(94) See Jacoby et al., supra note 88, at 62 (stating that the provision was struck from the Kyoto Protocol because of opposition from China, India, and other key developing countries that opposed any provisions that might lead to limits on their emissions).

(95) See Cooper, supra note 86, at 67-68 (arguing that there is unlikely to be a generally acceptable principle for allocating emission rights, thus dooming the Kyoto approach to failure).

(96) SAFINA, supra note 18.

(97) See, e.g., Christel G. Rutte et al., The Effects of Framing Social Dilemmas as the Give-Some or Toke-Some Games, 26 BRIT. J. SOC. PSYCHOL 103, 103-04 (1987) (finding that individuals involved in take-some games, as opposed to give-some games, are more inclined to relinquish decision-making anthority to a group leader).

(98) Theoretically, one can view virtually any solution to a commons dilemma as involving either a gain or a loss. Id at 103. For example, fishing quotas could be viewed as providing fishermen with a positive fight to a certain number of fish (a gain). If viewed from this perspective, the solution might look quite good: fishermen are getting a sure gain today, rather than gambling on the future viability of the stock. Or, as the text suggest, the same solution could be viewed as a loss. In practice, resource users seem to use historic levels as their flame of reference and thus view the solution as mandating an immediate Ices.

(99) A number of the experiments have compared standard "commons dilemmas" (in which subjects must decide how much of a new resource pool to take) with "public goods dilemmas" (in which subjects must invest their resources for a future benefit), finding more cooperation in the former than in the latter. See, e.g., Brewer & Kramer, supra note 4, at 548-49 (finding that in experiments involving a common resource pool, subjects kept more of the resource for themselves under the public goods version than under the commons dilemma version); Christopher McCusker & Peter J. Carnevale, Framing in Resource Dilemmas: Loss Aversion and the Moderating Effects of Sanctions, 61 ORG. BEHAV. & HUM. DECISION PROCESSES 190, 199 (1995) (concluding that framing has important effects in resource dilemmas); Jane Sell & Yeongi Son, Comparing Public Goods with Common Pool Resources: Three Experiments, 60 SOC. PSYCHOL. Q. 118, 129 (1997) (finding, more cooperation in commons dilemmas than in the provision of public goods).

(100) Cf. George Loewenstein & Samuel Isaacharoff, Source Dependence in the Valuation of Objects, 7 J. BEHAV. DECISION MAKING 157, 165 (1994) (finding that people value possessions more when they obtain them through their own skill).

(101) See McCusker & Carnevale, supra note 99, at 200 (noting that social norms can change reference points for framing purposes).

(102) See Baron & Jurney, supra note 13, at 348 (noting role of rights-based norms in generating opposition to coerced reform of commons dilemmas).

(103) See Eric van Dijk & Henk Wilke, Is It Mine or Is It Ours? Framing Property Rights and Decision Making in Social Dilemmas, 71 ORG. BEHAV. & HUM. DECISION PROCESSES 195, 197-98, 204-06 (1997) (arguing that when group members are assigned separate resources in a social dilemma, they are less likely to perceive their actions in terms of the consequences to fellow group members).

(104) Restrepo et al, supra note 23, at 2 (noting that the stocks of unknown status, however, constitute only a small percentage of the total commercial landings in the U.S.); see also National Marine Fisheries Serv., supra note 21, at 51 (noting that the stocks of unknown status include a number of important species).

(105) See Jacoby et al., supra note 88, at 57 (noting uncertainty regarding nature and extent of climate change and its effect on human health, ecosystems, and economies).

(106) See David V. Budescu et al., Resource Dilemmas With Environmental Uncertainty and Asymmetric Players, 20 EUR. J. SOC. PSYCHOL. 475, 484-85 (1990); Donald W. Hine & Robert Gifford, Individual Restraint and Group Efficiency in Commons Dilemmas: The Effects of Two Types of Environmental Uncertainty, 26 J. APPLIED SOC. PSYCHOL. 993, 1003 (1996); Amnon Rapoport et al., Social Dilemmas With Uniformity Distributed Resources, in SOCIAL DILEMMAS: THEORETICAL ISSUES AND RESEARCH FINDINGS 43, 53-56 (Wim B.G. Liebrand et al. eds., 1992); Sylvia G. Roch & Charles D. Samuelson, Effects of Environmental Uncertainty and Social Value Orientation in Resource Dilemmas, 70 ORG. BEHAV. & HUM. DECISION PROCESSES 221, 222 (1997).

(107) See Hine & Gifford, supra note 106, at 1003-06.

(108) Id. at 1005.

(109) Id. at 995-96 & 1005-06; see also Cooper, supra note 86, at 79 (stating that prior history with international efforts to contain contagious diseases suggests that "absence of scientific consensus" on global climate change will make agreement on a solution difficult).

(110) Cf. Arjnaan Wit & Henk Wilke, Public Good Provision Under Environmental & Social Uncertainty, 28 EUR. J. SOC. PSYCHOL. 249, 254-55 (1998) (noting the role of social signaling in decisions regarding how much to contribute toward the production of a public good).

(111) See Kimberly A. Wade-Benzoni et al., Egocentric Interpretations of Fairnesss in Asymmetric Environmental Social Dilemmas: Explaining Harvesting Behavior and the Role of Communications, 67 ORG. BEHAV. & HUM. DECISION PROCESSES 111, 112-14 (1996). Asymmetric interpretations of fairness arise, in a variety of common, everyday context. For example, each member of a family believes that he is doing more than his fair share of housework. Id. at 113.

(112) Baron & Jurney, supra note 13, at 348 (noting importance of fairness perceptions in evaluations of potential commons reforms). Not surprisingly, asymmetric interpretations of fairness are one of the major barriers to the negotiated resolution of any dispute. See Wade-Benzoni et al., supra note 111, at 113, 125.

(113) Wade-Benzoni et al., supra note 111, at 124.

(114) Id. at 112, 124 n. 12 (finding a 57% cooperation rate in symmetric resource dilemma situations).

(115) Id. at 113.

(116) Id. at 125.

(117) See Cooper, supra note 86, at 73.

(118) Brian P. O'Connor & David B. Tindall, Attributions & Behavior in a Commons Dilemma, 124 J. PSYCHOL. 485, 490 (1990).

(119) Id. at 491. The researchers classified the participants' behavior as "cooperative" or "noncooperative" using the following three different standards of cooperation: "share" (whether participants took more than their share of all the fish in the fishery in any round of the fishing game); "status quo" (whether participants took more fish than needed to preserve the initial status quo level of the fishery); and "ideal world" (whether participants ensured sufficient fish at the end of a round to provide for optimal yield). The percentage of participants who thought they had been cooperative even though they were not by the "share," "status quo," and "ideal world" standards respectively were 32%, 73%, and 77%. Id. at 491.

For other examples of a halo effect, see Robert Gifford & Donald W. Hine, Toward Cooperation in Commons Dilemmas, 29 CANADIAN J. BEHAV. SCI. 167, 174 (1997) (noting that "harvesters' definitions of cooperation often lead them to believe they are cooperating when, based on an objective measure such as a sustainability formula, the harvesters are seriously degrading the resource"); Donald W. Hine & Robert Gifford, Attributions About Self and Others in Commons Dilemmas, 26 EUR. J. SOC. PSYCHOL. 429, 443 (1996) [hereinafter Hine & Gifford, Attributions About Self and Others] (noting a stronger tendency to self-serving attributions among heavy harvesters in a commons dilemma).

(120) See Robert Gifford & Donald Hine, "I'm Cooperative, But You're Greedy": Some Cognitive Tendencies in a Commons Dilemma, 29 CANADIAN J. BEHAV. SCI. 257, 261 (1997); Wade-Benzoni et al., supra note 111, at 125. The perception of others within the community is less predictable. In the previously described experiment evaluating subjects' perception of their own cooperation, supra notes 118-19 and accompanying text the researchers found that subjects believed that the other participants were also more "cooperative" than in fact they were when measured by any objective criterion. But the optimistic attribution of cooperation was somewhat less dramatic than when subjects were rating their own cooperation. While 84% of the subjects rated themselves as "cooperative," only 74% rated others as cooperative. O'Connor & Tindall, supra note 118, at 490; see also Hine & Gifford, Attributions About Self and Others, supra note 119, at 432 (suggesting that attributional biases will be similar for self and others, but more biased toward self).

(121) See Wade-Benzoni et al., supra note 111, at 125.

(122) Christel G. Rutte et al., Scarcity or Abundance Caused by People or the Environment as Determinants of Behavior in the Resource Dilemma, 23 J. EXPERIMENTAL SOC. PSYCHOL. 208, 213-14 (1987).

(123) As Hine and Gifford have observed, scientific uncertainty may "provide a context in which individuals can act in their own self-interest, yet fool themselves, others, or both into believing that they were trying to act in the best interests of the group." Hine & Gifford, supra note 106, at 1005-06.

(124) See Wade-Benzoni, supra note 20, at 1401-04 (citing evidence that people feel an obligation to future generations).

(125) CASS K. SUNSTEIN, AFTER THE RIGHTS REVOLUTION: RECONCEIVING THE REGULATORY STATE 86 (1990); see also Stewart E. Sterk, Foresight and the Law of Servitudes, 73 CORNELL L. REV. 956, 958-59 (1988) (nothing that future generations are not involved in setting current market discount rates); Barton H. Thompson, Jr., People or Prairie Chickens: The Uncertain Search for Optimal Biodiversity, 51 STAN. L. REV. 1127, 1158-59 (1999) (noting concerns over the intergenerational appropriateness of market discount rates).

(126) See, e.g., Dermot Gately, Individual Discount Rates and the Purchase and Utilization of Energy-Using Durables: Comment, 11 BELL J. ECON. 373 (1980) (analyzing the implicit discount rates used by purchasers of refrigerators in trading off between initial cost and energy usage); Jerry Hausman, Individual Discount Rates and the Purchase and Utilization of Energy-Using Durables, 10 BELL J. ECON. 33 (1979) (analyzing the implicit discount rates used in the purchase of energy using durables); Henry Ruderman et al., Energy-Efficiency Choice in Purchase of Residential Appliances, in ENERGY EFFICIENCY: PERSPECTIVES ON INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR 41 (Kempton et al. eds., 1986) (analyzing the implicit discount rates used by purchasers of refrigerators, freezers, and heating and cooling equipment).

(127) See Gately, supra note 126, at 374 (refrigerators: 45-300% depending on assumed cost of energy); Hausman, supra note 126, at 50 (air conditioners: 25%); Ruderman et al., supra note 126, at 46 (air conditioners: 17%; gas water heaters: 102%; freezers: 138%; electric water heaters: 243%).

(128) See Ruderman et al., supra note 126, at 48-50 (concluding that consumers were not making economically optimal decisious in failing to buy more efficient appliances). According to some psychologists, energy consumers' heavy bias toward the present is not unusual. "`Impatience' or `myopic preferences' are pervasive in human economic behavior, and subjective rates at which future gains or losses are discounted are well in excess of what would be economically rational." Charles Vlek & Gideon Keren, Behavioral Decision Theory and Environmental Risk Management: Assessment and Resolution of Four `Survival' Dilemmas, 80 ACTA PSYCHOLOGICA 249, 262 (1992).

(129) See Elizabeth A. Mannix, Resource Dilemmas and Discount Rates in Decision Making Groups, 27 J. EXPERIMENTAL SOC. PSYCHOL. 379, 382 (1991). The larger sums at stake, however, might lead resource users to engage in a more considerate trade-off. Cf. George Loewenstein & Richard H. Thaler, Anomalies: Intertemporal Choice, J. ECON. PERSP., Fall 1989, at 181, 183-84 (finding that discount rates are more reasonable where large sums are at stake).

(130) See Gideon Keren & Peter Roelofsma, Immediacy and Certainty in Intertemporal Choice, 63 ORG. BEHAV. & HUM. DECISION PROCESSES 287, 290-91 (1995); Marjorie K. Shelley, Gain/Loss Asymmetry in Risky Intertemporal Choice, 59 ORG. BEHAV. & HUM. DECISION PROCESSES 124, 127-28 (1994); Vlek & Keren, supra note 128, at 263-64.

(131) See George Loewenstein, Anticipation, and the Valuation of Delayed Consumption, 97 ECON. J. 666, 673-74 (1987); George Loewenstein & Drazen Prelec, Anomalies in Intertemporal Choice: Evidence and an Interpretation, in CHOICE OVER TIME 119, 122 (George Loewenstein & Jon Elster eds., 1992); Richard Thaler, Toward a Positive Theory of Consumer Choice, 1 J. ECON. BEHAV. & ORG. 39, 40-41 (1980).

(132) See Max H. Bazerman et al., The Human Mind as a Barrier to Wiser Environmental Agreements, 42 AM. BEHAV. SCIENTIST 1277, 1288-89 (1999).

(133) See, e.g., Neil D. Weinstein & Judith E. Lyon, Mindset Optimistic Bias About Personal Risk and Health Protection Behaviour, 4 BRIT. J. HEALTH PSYCHOL. 289, 294-98 (1999) (discussing peoples' discounting of the risk of radon exposure).

(134) Lawrence M. Ausubel, The Failure of Competition in the Credit Card Market, 81 AM. ECON. REV. 50 (1991).

(135) Id. at 71-72.

(136) See Shelley, supra note 130, at 151.

(137) See id. at 152.

(138) See Postel, supra note 55, at 38.

(139) Id.

(140) Cf. Wade-Benzoni, supra note 20, at 1401 ("[T]he simple fact that future generations are `others' (and not ourselves) who are typically unidentifiable and vague in definition prevents their needs from being immediate and pressing to us.").

(141) See Postel, supra note 55, at 38 (suggesting that the public trust doctrine be used to impose restrictions on groundwater extractions through either legislative or judicial action).

(142) Endangered Species Act of 1973, 16 U.S.C. [subsections] 1531-1544 (1994).

(143) For a discussion of the history of the Edwards Aquifer litigation, see Todd H. Votteler, The Little Fish That Roared: The Endangered Species Act Groundwater Law, and Private Property Rights Collide Over the Texas Edwards Aquifer, 28 ENVTL. L. 845 (1998).

(144) Id. at 851.

(145) See Sierra Club v. Lujan, 36 E.R.C. (BNA) 1533 (W.D. Tex 1993).

(146) See S. 1477, 73d Leg., Reg. Seas. (Tex. 1993). Unfortunately, the Authority has not yet effectively implemented the legislature's mandate. See Votteler, supra note 143, at 878-79.

(147) Part of the problem is that the general public is not aware of the threatened state of many commons. Cf. Cass & Edney, supra note 4, at 383-84 (suggesting that the government publish daily announcements of the status of critical resources). But even when informed, members of the public frequently seem indifferent.

(148) See Wade-Benzoni et al., supra note 111, at 125 (noting that people are unlikely to implement a solution they perceive as unfair).

(149) See supra notes 143-46 and accompanying text.

(150) See ALDO LEOPOLD, A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC, AND SKETCHES HERE AND THERE (1949).

(151) Klandermans, supra note 10, at 307.

(152) Id. at 307-08.

(153) See Kollock, supra note 4, at 193-94.

(154) Jeffery M. Smith & Paul A. Bell, Environmental Concern and Cooperative-Competitive Behavior in a Simulated Commons Dilemma 132 J. SOC. PSYCHOL. 461, 461-65 (1992).

(155) Id.

(156) Id. at 466-67. What mattered was how the participant scored on the Machiavellian personality scale, which measures competitiveness versus cooperativeness. As a general matter, people who are highly competitive perform far worse, in terms of social optimization, in commons dilemmas. See id. An interesting factual question is whether industries typified by commons dilemmas, such as fishing and farming (which uses the most groundwater), attract more competitive participants.

(157) A third factor may also contribute to the insignificant impact of environmental attitude: anonymity. Environmental attitudes might be activated in part by the fear of shame. When participants in commons dilemmas are anonymous (as they typically are), they might feel less reluctant to abandon their environmental norms than when other participants know of their behavior. See Jorgenson & Papciak, supra note 4, at 375 (noting that identifiability can help promote more cooperation in commons dilemmas due to the "presence of greater inhibition about behaving selfishly"). This factor is irrelevant when a participant is deciding whether to support a solution because a participant's support of or opposition to a solution is generally visible.

(158) See Smith & Bell, supra note 154, at 467 (noting that self-interest appears to be a better predictor of behavior than environmental attitude).

(159) S.J. Kantola et al., Cognitive Dissonance & Energy Conservation, 69 J. APPLIED PSYCHOL. 416, 416-21 (1984).

(160) Id. at 417.

(161) Cf. Hine & Gifford, supra note 106, at 1006 (noting that scientific uncertainty undermines norms of cooperation).

(162) Wade-Benzoni et al., supra note 111, at 125.

(163) See O'Connor & Tindall, supra note 118, at 486 (stating that appeals to conscience and altruism may not work if people already think they are cooperative).

(164) See Cass R. Sunstein, Social Norms and Social Rules, 96 COLUM. L. REV. 903, 906-07 (1996) (discussing recycling norms); Suzanne C. Thompson & Kirsten Stoutemyer, Water Use as a Commons Dilemma: The Effects of Education that Focuses on Long-Term Consequences and Individual Actions, 23 ENV'T & BEHAV. 314, 328-32 (1991) (finding that education on the long-term consequences of high water use, along with an ethics campaign featuring bumper stickers like "If water runs low, who cares? We all do!" can lead to reduced consumption in lower/middle-class communities, but finding no impact in middle/upper-class communities).

(165) See Smith & Bell, supra note 154, at 466-67 (noting that some participants in the fishing simulation discussed supra notes 154-56 and accompanying text stated that they would have engaged in more socially cooperative behavior if the resource was something that they felt strongly about, such as whales).

(166) See supra notes 130-37 and accompanying text.

(167) See supra notes 131 and accompanying text.

(168) See Vlek & Keren, supra note 128, at 263-64 (finding that when expected losses appear certain an individual is more inclined to sacrifice something now to avoid future losses).

(169) See DAVID A. LAX & JAMES K. SEBENIUS, THE MANAGER AS NEGOTIATOR: BARGAINING FOR COOPERATION AND COMPETITIVE GAIN 29 (1986).

(170) See id. at 30 (emphasizing that the "competitive and cooperative elements" of negotiation--i.e., claiming and creating--"are inextricably entwined" and that "[n]either denial nor discomfort will make it disappear").

(171) Cf. Andrew J. Hoffman et al., A Mixed-Motive Perspective on the Economics Versus Environment Debate, 42 AM. BEHAV. SCIENTIST 1254, 1267-71 (1999) (discussing the advantages of "presettlement settlements" in helping participants overcome "pseudosacred barriers" and the "fear of a slippery slope").

(172) See Hine & Gifford, supra note 106, at 1007 (noting the desirability of reducing perceived uncertainty through additional scientific study of commons resources); Roch & Samuelson, supra note 106, at 232 (same).

(173) Keren & Roelofsma, supra note 130, at 290 (emphasis added); see also Wade-Benzoni, supra note 20, at 1400-01 (noting that uncertainty is associated with any event that may occur in the future).

(174) See Hine & Gifford, supra note 106, at 1007.

(175) See Charles Lord et al., Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence, 37 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 2098, 2098-2109 (1979).

(176) Id. at 2107-08. The two studies provided to the undergraduates in this experiment, however, were themselves conflicting--one study appearing to show that capital punishment provides effective deterrence, and the other study appearing to undermine this conclusion. An unresolved question is whether people with strongly held views would also pick and choose information from within a single consistent study.

(177) Thankfully, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that people with moderate views do not suffer from the same degree of biased assimilation as the subjects in the capital punishment experiment. See Robert J. MacCoun, Biases in the Interpretation and Use of Research Results, 49 ANN. REV. PSYCHOL. 259, 267 (1998).

(178) See ROBERT K. MERTON, THE SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE 275--78 (1973); MacCoun, supra note 174, at 260.

(179) See MacCoun, supra note 177, at 263 (noting that people are quick to "shoot the messenger" when the message is inconsistent with preheld views). Part of the reason for this is that people engage in a naive realism, assuming that their own views are objective, and that contrary views must therefore result from prejudice or bias. See id. at 264.

(180) Kilapaati Ramakrishna & Oran R. Young, International Organizations in a Warming World: Building a Global Climate Regime, in CONFRONTING CLIMATE CHANGE 253, 253-59 (Irving M. Mintzer ed., 1993).

(181) See Vlek & Keren, supra note 128, at 264 (suggesting that discount rates can be reduced by making the future more salient and thus decreasing the psychological distance to the future).

(182) Cf. George Loewenstein, Out of Control: Visceral Influences on Behavior, 65 ORG. BEHAV. & HUM. DECISION PROCESSES 272, 273-85 (1996) (emphasizing the importance of visceral factors and "vividness" on decision making); Roch & Samuelson, supra note 106, at 232 (suggesting that the use of "vivid images" is important in achieving restraint in commons dilemmas); Wade-Benzoni, supra note 20, at 1402 (noting importance of "vividness" in establishing sympathy for events that will befall future generations).

(183) See Cooper, supra note 86, at 73 (noting that demand for new power plants will be modest for next 20 years, but replacing existing power plants would be "dauntingly expensive").

(184) See Palmer, supra note 3, at 417-18.

(185) See Charles D. Samuelson, A Multiattribute Evaluation Approach to Structural Change in Resource Dilemma, 55 ORG. BEHAV. & HUM. DECISION PROCESSES 298, 301 (1993).

(186) See id. This criterion suggests that, when possible, privatization should be considered as a solution. Id. at 319-20 (noting that the preferred solution among participants was privatization because it "allow[s] for personal autonomy"); see also Mark Van Vugt & David De Cremer, Leadership in Social Dilemmas: The Effects of Group Identification on Collective Actions to Provide Public Goods, 76 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 587, 588 (1999).

(187) Resource users may value discretion and autonomy more highly than future security. See Susan C. Nunn, The Political Economy of Institutional Change: A Distributional Criterion for Acceptance of Groundwater Rules, 25 NAT. RESOURCES J. 867, 877 (1985).

(188) See Tom R. Tyler & Peter Degoey, Collective Restraint in Social Dilemmas: Procedural Justice and Social Identification Effects on Support for Authorities, 69 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 482, 482-84, 493 (1995); Van Vugt & De Cremer, supra note 186, at 588; see also Stephen E. White & David E. Kromm, Local Groundwater Management Effectiveness in the Colorado and Kansas Ogallala Region, 35 NAT. RESOURCES J. 275, 275-76 (1995) (arguing that local groundwater management is the only feasible approach).

(189) See Edwards Aquifer Authority Enabling Statute, ch. 626, TEX. GEN. LAWS 2355 (1993), as amended by ch. 261, TEX. GEN. LAWS [sections] 1.14(a), (b), (c), (h) (1995); supra notes 143-46 and accompanying text.

(190) Id. [sections] 1.34.

(191) See Votteler, supra note 143, at 874-76.

(192) See Wade-Benzoni et al., supra note 111, at 111-14.

(193) Id. at 114.

BARTON H. THOMPSON, JR., Robert E. Paradise Professor of Natural Resources Law, Stanford Law School. This Essay was originally delivered as a speech to the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College, where I was the Distinguished lecturer during the Fall of 1999. Many thanks are due the faculty, students, and alumni of the Northwestern School of Law for their tremendous hospitality and their useful feedback on the original speech. This Essay also has benefited from the valuable comments of Josh Eagle and participants in Stanford Law School's Environmental Workshop Seminar and the Stanford Center on Conflict & Negotiation's Interdisciplinary Dispute Resolution Seminar.