Air Quality as a Common Resource
145
1 4 5
principles for accurate monitoring, enforcement, and conflict resolution
with these non- person users. Consider, hypothetically, a coal- fired power
plant owned by a large conglomerate corporation. As the power plant
supplies electricity to the nearby city, and also pumps pollution into the
air, a number of quandaries arise for Ostrom’s design principles. If the
winds carry the air pollution anywhere other than directly over the city
using all the electricity, are the benefits proportional to the inputs of the
people using that electricity? Is the monitoring of the system accountable
to the users of the electricity (i.e. the local people) or the users of the coal
and air (i.e. the power plant company)? If there are some users that can
only be defined at higher (non- local) levels, then those users presumably
must be subject to higher- level compliance and results monitoring, but do
those higher- level processes need to be beholden to more local levels (per
Ostrom’s design principles) or beholden to even higher- level authorities?
How do we get equal participation of different types of users (individuals
and business/ corporate entities) if these users exist at different levels of
organization, yet they must in some ways all be subject to the same operational rules, monitoring, graduated sanctions for violations, and conflict
resolution mechanisms?
We know why we need to address the challenge of air quality. Overuse (i.e.
pollution, greenhouse gas emissions) threatens to devolve air quality from
a sustaining, renewable common resource into a public good that requires
investment to maintain. Further degradation of air quality will require even
more regulations, restrictions, and restoration efforts – more costs. The bulk
of this book is about how to address the challenge of air quality. Part of this
answer involves how technology can help as a means to satisfy energy production and other needs without further damaging air quality as a renewable
common resource. This includes transitions to cleaner energy production
methods (e.g. solar, wind, and bioenergy), changes to energy storage and
use patterns (e.g. batteries, smart grids, and electrical power management,
electrification of transportation), and improvements in energy efficiency
and conservation. Improving air quality is a global challenge that will not
be solved with a single innovation, but rather will require an interrelated
collection of new technologies, regulations, and innovations.
Another part of the answer for how to address the challenge of air
quality involves innovations in the structure and organization of humans
and their systems. First steps for this part of the answer include having an
understanding of what that system structure is. We are living within the
renewable common resource system of our atmosphere, and a general lack
of good system management (e.g. excess greenhouse gas emissions) has been
degrading this system (i.e. creating global climate change). We can either
continue down this path, in which case air quality will transition to being
a public or club good and then likely to a private good, or we can improve
the management of this system – for example, by using Ostrom’s design
principles – and push people’s behaviors towards a more sustainable system.
145
1 4 5
principles for accurate monitoring, enforcement, and conflict resolution
with these non- person users. Consider, hypothetically, a coal- fired power
plant owned by a large conglomerate corporation. As the power plant
supplies electricity to the nearby city, and also pumps pollution into the
air, a number of quandaries arise for Ostrom’s design principles. If the
winds carry the air pollution anywhere other than directly over the city
using all the electricity, are the benefits proportional to the inputs of the
people using that electricity? Is the monitoring of the system accountable
to the users of the electricity (i.e. the local people) or the users of the coal
and air (i.e. the power plant company)? If there are some users that can
only be defined at higher (non- local) levels, then those users presumably
must be subject to higher- level compliance and results monitoring, but do
those higher- level processes need to be beholden to more local levels (per
Ostrom’s design principles) or beholden to even higher- level authorities?
How do we get equal participation of different types of users (individuals
and business/ corporate entities) if these users exist at different levels of
organization, yet they must in some ways all be subject to the same operational rules, monitoring, graduated sanctions for violations, and conflict
resolution mechanisms?
We know why we need to address the challenge of air quality. Overuse (i.e.
pollution, greenhouse gas emissions) threatens to devolve air quality from
a sustaining, renewable common resource into a public good that requires
investment to maintain. Further degradation of air quality will require even
more regulations, restrictions, and restoration efforts – more costs. The bulk
of this book is about how to address the challenge of air quality. Part of this
answer involves how technology can help as a means to satisfy energy production and other needs without further damaging air quality as a renewable
common resource. This includes transitions to cleaner energy production
methods (e.g. solar, wind, and bioenergy), changes to energy storage and
use patterns (e.g. batteries, smart grids, and electrical power management,
electrification of transportation), and improvements in energy efficiency
and conservation. Improving air quality is a global challenge that will not
be solved with a single innovation, but rather will require an interrelated
collection of new technologies, regulations, and innovations.
Another part of the answer for how to address the challenge of air
quality involves innovations in the structure and organization of humans
and their systems. First steps for this part of the answer include having an
understanding of what that system structure is. We are living within the
renewable common resource system of our atmosphere, and a general lack
of good system management (e.g. excess greenhouse gas emissions) has been
degrading this system (i.e. creating global climate change). We can either
continue down this path, in which case air quality will transition to being
a public or club good and then likely to a private good, or we can improve
the management of this system – for example, by using Ostrom’s design
principles – and push people’s behaviors towards a more sustainable system.