Deeper Background on Crises in the Commons

Successive technological developments, from animal husbandry, which enabled the use of common grazing lands, to maritime navigation, which opened new trade and communications routes on the high seas, have forced human society to consider how it governs shared common
resources. The global commons is equally vast and mismanaged. At present the commons covers more than 75 percent of the Earth’s surface, including all of the oceans and Antarctica, as well as outer space or cyberspace. But the question of how this enormous swath of the Earth’s surface and beyond should be managed has received little attention by news media or the public.