The Cognitive Comparative Research On Global Climate Change

The widely accepted theory"tragedy of the commons"has been one of the most fundamental theories in explaining various kinds of natural resources and environmental problems since its birth in 1968 by Garrett Hardin. It should not be strange at all when people applied it to global climate change problem instantly as it was becoming one of the major environmental challenges during 1980s-1990s. Based on this assumption that global climate change is undoubtedly the"tragedy of the commons", intensive discussions have been raised in the hope of alleviating the problem to a less-threatening level. Nevertheless, the assumption has never been carefully considered or even questioned from either a scientific or a philosophic perspective, and sadly speaking, this assumption no longer holds. This is just like"Pluto Phenomenon"that for once it has been widely accepted and spread for several years, the first instinct of people tends rather to apply it as a general law than to question it when new problems are raised. It is because of the cognitive error that the subsequent resolutions and policies based on the wrong assumption are doomed to be purposeless and inefficient. As the only international agreement aimed at alleviating global climate change, Kyoto Protocol has been ratified since 1997. Although some efforts has been made and some mechanisms has been implemented, it seems the expected target could not be achieved at all, even the most active EU participants are expressing the concrete difficulties in meeting the combating targets set in the first term, not to mention the unilateral and complete withdraw of the U.S. With little doubt, there are limitations and unrealistic propositions in the Protocol, but the fundamental flaw should be traced into the fact that the whole resolution is based on the wrong assumption that the global climate change is a case of"tragedy of the commons", in which case, it is not. Therefore, to thoroughly analyze the nature of the global climate change is vital to reveal its true characteristics and to buildup a cognitive system based on the existing findings is by far the sole way to search for the effective solutions. It requires the decomposition of both"tragedy of the commons"and global climate change.This dissertation compared these two issues under the cognition comparative framework, which includes three perspectives as the basic assumptions, the expected impacts and the solutions. These perspectives reveal eight significant different aspects that could not possible reconcile. Unlike"tragedy of the commons", global climate change is typically a radical uncertainty problem, and the countless contributing factors are extremely complicated and interrelated, any attempt to solve it based on limited contributing factors implied by"tragedy of the commons"is doomed to failure. It can only be counted on the technological advance and proliferation that a technique solution could be found in the future.From the perspective of the expected impacts, the tragedy of global climate change seems uncertain, at least not universal. Not every region shares the same risks and shoulders the same responsibilities as the"tragedy of the commons"implies. The six distinctive groups of interests make this point loud and clear. It is found that the six groups include the oil-driven countries, small island developed countries, former Soviet Union countries, United States of America and Australia, Europe Union and most developed countries, and China, India and most developing countries. Based on the analysis, this dissertation concluded a comparative framework on the six groups'interests, and found out that the distinctive characteristics of each group differentiate the effect of global climate change and determine their unique positions and attitudes in the actions of slowing down the climate change.With respect to solutions, it is evident that the international community, namely the United Nations, should play the major role. However, with its less-stringent policies and unenforceable agreements, there is hardly anything to achieve. Meanwhile, the role of other nongovernmental organizations and ethical propaganda may be undervalued. Both the top-down and bottom-up approaches should be equally emphasized in the future to alleviate global climate change.To sum up, this dissertation neither deny the existence of"tragedy of the commons", nor deny the negative effect of global climate change. But it is found that global climate change is too distinct to be considered as one of the kind"tragedy of the commons". The newly buildup cognitive comparative framework should enable people to better comprehend the reason why the old-school thoughts inherited from the wrong assumption would not work. The fresh new philosophic paradigm is in place to enable dynamic analysis to search for a new set of solutions for the ever-changing global climate change.