Earth Equity News

Nobel Lauriate Elinor Ostrom's Work May Help Fight Climate Change. By Graeme Wearden and Ed Pilkington, London Guardian, October 12, 2009. "A political scientist from Indiana University whose work exploring how people come together to preserve their collective resources may provide important clues in the fight against climate change has become the first woman to win the Nobel prize for economics. Elinor Ostrom, 76, shares the award with fellow American academic Oliver Williamson, 77, whose work focuses on a similar area of the relationship between individuals, companies and government… What interests her is how common property can be managed successfully through groups in society. One of the first subjects that interested her was management of water resources. She has also looked at the management of fish stocks, pastures, woods and groundwater basins. The findings of her research have been striking, as the Nobel committee pointed out, because they have challenged the established assumption that common property is poorly managed unless it is either regulated by government or privatised. She has shown how disparate individuals can band together and form collectives that protect the resource at hand. That is an important message at a time when policymakers are grappling with how to cope with global warming. Again, it challenges a conventional assumption that without regulation or the action of private enterprise, no progress to change individual behaviour can be made. 'A lot of people are waiting for more international co-operation to solve [global warming],' Ostrom said being told she had won the award. 'There is this assumption that there are public officials who are geniuses, and that the rest of us are not… 'It is important that there is international agreement, but we can be taking steps at family level, community level, civic and national level … There are many steps that can be taken that will not solve it on their own but cumulatively will make a big difference.'"