Air, water, and living species all function as common pools spanning space and time

Evidence

Natural resources such as air and water create a common pool over both space and time. The natural fluidity and mobility of those resources adds to their common pool nature by magnifying the impact of actions at one time and place on the same resource at other times and places. Actions upwind are likely to have impacts downwind, just as actions upstream are likely to have impacts downstream. So too, though less obviously, do animal and plant species exhibit common pool tendencies both because of their reproductive capabilities and their interdependencies with other parts of an ecosystem. An impact on one species not only affects the viability of that species,butmaywellhaveasignificantimpactonotherspeciesofplantsand animals in both the present and the future. — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 133

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Ecosystem structure guarantees that environmental costs and benefits never fall on the same people — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 132