Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Improving Air Quality
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managed for long periods of time, and then extrapolating the key properties of those systems. This approach – studying successful, actual systems
which then inform the construction of a theoretical framework – is sometimes described as “Ostrom’s law” (Fennell, 2011): “A resource arrangement
that works in practice can work in theory.”
Maintaining a common pool resource by adhering to Ostrom’s design
principles (or by any other means) is one of the few sustainable long- term
solutions to the danger of overuse and eventual collapse. A currently healthy
common pool resource can be prophylactically structured in this way to
ensure its ongoing health. Common pool resources that have experienced
some overuse or damage can be restored by implementing design principles
such as Ostrom’s, but this approach will only work up to a point.
The inherent nature of air quality as a property of the atmosphere has
implications for how it is dealt with and for some of the issues that emerge.
When air quality transitions away from being simply a renewable common
resource, it tends to become a public good rather than a club good because
excludability is exceedingly difficult. Outside of imagined “off- world”
locations in science- fiction scenarios (where air is kept in containers of some
sort), no one can prevent others from having air. The quality of that air is
also generally a cumulative and diffused property, so exclusion of clean air,
rather than polluted air, is difficult. (Note, however, that air filtration systems
are potentially a technology that could evolve and begin to create good air
quality as a club good eventually.)
Another consequence of the diffused and non- excludable nature of air
quality is that it can easily and quickly become an international issue. Most
considerations for common resource overuse pit individual self- interest
against societal interest, with the society being a community, city, or nationstate. This level of consideration of course applies in the case of air quality
(e.g. individuals polluting in contravention of regulations). Air quality
conflicts also occur, though, at higher levels of organization: States or regions
engaging in selfish pollution in spite of national regulations and laws;
nations engaging in selfish pollution in spite of international interests. These
are levels of consideration which do not exist for immobile resources (e.g.
minerals and forests) but that can emerge when renewable resources are also
mobile enough to easily cross national borders (e.g. water, fish, and air). The
challenges of international coordination make global air quality issues particularly complex (e.g. Holzinger, 2002; Farrell and Granger Morgan, 2003).
15.5 Designing Air Quality Management
The design principles of Elinor Ostrom (1990, 2010; Dietz, et al., 2003; Ostrom
et al., 1994) suggest a number of clear and concrete steps for addressing the
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1 4 2
managed for long periods of time, and then extrapolating the key properties of those systems. This approach – studying successful, actual systems
which then inform the construction of a theoretical framework – is sometimes described as “Ostrom’s law” (Fennell, 2011): “A resource arrangement
that works in practice can work in theory.”
Maintaining a common pool resource by adhering to Ostrom’s design
principles (or by any other means) is one of the few sustainable long- term
solutions to the danger of overuse and eventual collapse. A currently healthy
common pool resource can be prophylactically structured in this way to
ensure its ongoing health. Common pool resources that have experienced
some overuse or damage can be restored by implementing design principles
such as Ostrom’s, but this approach will only work up to a point.
The inherent nature of air quality as a property of the atmosphere has
implications for how it is dealt with and for some of the issues that emerge.
When air quality transitions away from being simply a renewable common
resource, it tends to become a public good rather than a club good because
excludability is exceedingly difficult. Outside of imagined “off- world”
locations in science- fiction scenarios (where air is kept in containers of some
sort), no one can prevent others from having air. The quality of that air is
also generally a cumulative and diffused property, so exclusion of clean air,
rather than polluted air, is difficult. (Note, however, that air filtration systems
are potentially a technology that could evolve and begin to create good air
quality as a club good eventually.)
Another consequence of the diffused and non- excludable nature of air
quality is that it can easily and quickly become an international issue. Most
considerations for common resource overuse pit individual self- interest
against societal interest, with the society being a community, city, or nationstate. This level of consideration of course applies in the case of air quality
(e.g. individuals polluting in contravention of regulations). Air quality
conflicts also occur, though, at higher levels of organization: States or regions
engaging in selfish pollution in spite of national regulations and laws;
nations engaging in selfish pollution in spite of international interests. These
are levels of consideration which do not exist for immobile resources (e.g.
minerals and forests) but that can emerge when renewable resources are also
mobile enough to easily cross national borders (e.g. water, fish, and air). The
challenges of international coordination make global air quality issues particularly complex (e.g. Holzinger, 2002; Farrell and Granger Morgan, 2003).
15.5 Designing Air Quality Management
The design principles of Elinor Ostrom (1990, 2010; Dietz, et al., 2003; Ostrom
et al., 1994) suggest a number of clear and concrete steps for addressing the