The tragedy of the commons is a primary contributing factor in ensuring that humanity makes no serious inroads in averting climate change. As a recent Canadian politician pointed out, we could shut down the Canadian economy tomorrow, and it would make no measurable difference in global greenhouse gas emissions. When coordinated effort is required, it would seem that doing the “right thing” alone is irrational: it will harm oneself with no positive consequences as a result. Such is the tragedy. And that is the challenge that we take up here. Though Garrett Hardin suggests that the solution is a governmental process that rules over all contenders, since a world government seems unlikely before the planet hits the tippy point, we suggest an educational initiative instead: one that holds a mirror up to the behaviour of individuals, rather than to the behaviour of individuals in groups. Such an educational initiative would be focused on priming individuals to keep constant track of what they do as individuals as opposed to focusing on the behaviour of humanity in general. Such an educational initiative would focus on tackling the “problem solvers” rather than just “the problem”.

中文翻译：

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西西弗斯与气候变化：在公地悲剧的背景下进行教育

公地的悲剧是确保人类在避免气候变化方面不会有任何重大干预的主要因素。正如一位加拿大最近的政治家指出的那样，我们明天可以关闭加拿大经济，这不会对全球温室气体排放造成可衡量的变化。当需要协调一致的努力时，似乎单独做“正确的事情”是不合理的：它将伤害自己，而没有积极的后果。这就是悲剧。这就是我们在这里面临的挑战。尽管加勒特·哈丁（Garrett Hardin）提出解决方案是一个统治所有竞争者的政府程序，但由于世界政府似乎不太可能在地球达到临界点之前就采取行动，因此我们建议采取一项教育举措：该举措应与个人行为保持一致，而不是集体中的个人行为。这样的教育举措将侧重于激发个人以不断跟踪他们作为个人所做的事情，而不是侧重于一般的人类行为。这样的教育举措将着重于解决“问题解决者”，而不仅仅是“问题”。