A sustainable transition (Part III): A common interest

The tragedy of the commons is the theory that all common-pool resources (CPR) are finite and are thus in danger of exploitation and eventual destruction, and without governance individual users will exploit these resources to maximize their own benefit, and if their rate of use is faster than the time it takes for the resource to replenish their actions will lead to the eventual overuse and destruction of the CPR. 

The tragedy of the commons also leads to a conversation about the commons, and if people can recognize the value and vulnerability of the commons, to a coordinated effort of preservation.

This concept can best be understood in the binary of two birds. The passenger pigeon was a bird endemic to North America, and with an estimated population of five billion, was so abundant that their passage across the sky could obscure it as if there was an eclipse. While economic interests, such as protecting crops, were instrumental in their decline, they were also extensively used for trapshooting (before the advent of the clay pigeon) and as a source of food for a burgeoning New York City. 2014 marked the 100 year anniversary that they were entirely eradicated. On the other hand, the northern spotted owl was protected.1,200 pairs of these owls still live in Oregon, 560 pairs in Northern California, and 500 pairs in Washington, today. It is not an animal that is hunted or sought. But it is intolerant to shifts in its habitat, and threats to its livelihood gave rise to the President’s Northwest Plan, which barred logging in areas richly primed to do so, throwing “between 60,000 and 100,000 people out of work.” 

A commons was not threatened in the traditional sense—this was not a treaty about who can whale and how much. But it was a secondary commons—the typical tragedy of the commons has two elements: (1) a resource that can be extracted for the benefit of the extractor, that (2) the full extraction of which is a net and unrecoverable loss to the community—here, what was preserved for the benefit of the whole is the tradition and ecological system of the Pacific Northwest, and the reluctance to extinguish an entire form of life for the pursuit of profit. In sum, the “extraction” of the owl did not motivate the decision of timber companies to engage in logging, but its loss would still have been a net negative for the surrounding area, sparking a rule to protect the loss of a “common resource—the ecological, traditional, and moral benefit of the spotted owl. 

Now obviously an ecological tragedy of the commons is different from one of fossil fuels. There is no replenishment in fossil fuels; while the the stock is so vast that they are not likely to ever be fully
exhausted, there is an inevitability to the fact that they will be. There is only one way that coal can be “exhausted” and that is extracting all of it from the ground. That inures a benefit to the extractor, but it will not replenish, thereby distinguishing it slightly from the typical tragedy of the commons.  If we continue to extract coal, at any rate, it will inevitability be exhausted. While compelling, it is beyond the scope of this blog post to reconcile whether fossil fuel represents a tragedy of the commons (we could still have it if we didn’t exhaust it more than it could replenish) or something like an “inevitability of the commons” (it was never going to replenish anyway, but we could have gotten more out of it if we had just been more careful in which we extracted). But regardless, the commons still represents a common resource. 

The current push to site renewables at all costs means a push for utility-scale renewable energy installation. This has two major downsides. First, these projects are overwhelmingly sited in rural areas. Second, they benefit a sliver of the community’s social strata (wealthy, often absentee landowners, with extensive real estate holdings) while spreading the cost across the entire community. Third, without meaningful planning, the community may bear far more cost than benefit and may be strained to the point of collapse, much like the passenger pigeon. It is a prototypical example of the tragedy of the commons. 

I discussed in Part II the problem with transitional payments (a flat amount of money paid to displaced workers), and how they are unsuccessful. But the flip side of the argument considers the state surplus payments made every year by Alaska to its citizens. Why is it different? Primarily because it is distributed without red tape, but almost more importantly, because it is distributed equally. It is easier to accept the exploitation of a resource if you are receiving a benefit too—ironically, because the commons becomes common. No longer are a few small entities siphoning away something that belongs to all of us: we’re getting to sup on that straw too. In the tragedy of the commons, the costs accrue to everyone. Here, so do the benefits.

While rural America has borne the brunt of extraction, they now possess a somewhat perverse resource in spades: superfund sites. One of the major concerns with utility-scale renewable energy siting is that they will corrupt otherwise usable land (See Part I). But what if the land to be corrupted is already so? 

The term brownfield typically refers to land that is abandoned or underused, in part, because of concerns about contamination. The federal government defines brownfields as “abandoned, idled or underused industrial and commercial properties where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination.” 

In the mid 1990s, the EPA began providing seed money to local governments to launch hundreds of two-year pilot projects and developed guidance and tools for cleanup and redevelopment of brownfield sites. The 2002 Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act codified many of EPA's practices, policies and guidance. The 2018 Brownfields Utilization, Investment and Local Development (BUILD) Act reauthorized EPA’s Brownfields Program and approved changes that affect grants, ownership and liability provisions, and State and Tribal Response Programs. 

Under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, Congress provided major funding to support planning, construction and operation of various public infrastructure improvements. Brownfields are continuously developing in both their characteristics and the government’s approach. It seems more than viable that a government could seize a brownfield through eminent domain and then remediate it enough to house solar farms. I want to stress here that there are two caveats. First, this must be a voluntary process undertaken with the consent of the community. Otherwise, it perpetuates an internal colony as better examined in Part IV--this would be the opposite of taking care of a commons. I It would be extractive. Second, this should not be the fate of all brownfield sites. These sites should still be cleaned up, but in the meantime, with climate change looming like it never has before, this land use could provide a temporary solution to a dire problem. 

Repurposing “bad land” into something better has already proven to be successful in rural communities, to some capacity. In Kentucky, hilltops blown out in search of coal have been repurposed to elevated communities, both reusing the land and relocating a flood-risk community to higher ground. 

When you think about rural America as a common resource, it is easier to justify what I think is a crucial component of the green transition. Compensating and rehabilitating these communities without benefitting the people who exploited them. I would advocate for governmental seizure of brownfield sites and other superfund sites through eminent domain, and construction of localized renewable energy projects. 

One main benefit of this is decentralizing the grid. If rural areas are able to achieve energy independence, not only can those communities prosper but the energy rate for the rest of the country goes down, and the durability of energy demand goes up. 

By conceptualizing rural America as a commons, we don’t only seek to protect it but justify investment in ensuring its continued existence—if not for them, then for us. Which cuts nicely antithetical to the current rhetoric of considering fossil fuel towns as backwards and standing in the face of progress. But what does extraction really mean to a community?