Luckily I bumped into Arbie Jay in a barroom in Bearwood and over a bottle of hooch and a cheap cigar he gave me some excellent advice to pass on.
'It is colder now....' and I write wrapped in many layers, missing the heat and humidity of Indonesia where a splash of cold water 'comes like a benison'.
I took my breakfast coffee - so black no sky could squeak through - up to bed to read New Scientist. Fred Pearce had written a piece about the current trend for putting a price on nature. A company has bought some rainforest and is trying to sell such things as soil, biodiversity and, not surprisingly, rain.
In the course of the article Fred P mentions The Tragedy of the Commons and I was reminded how influential that short essay became.
Perhaps in maths and some other sciences a brief paper or a few lines can have extraordinary an effect, but in general it is a book or a substantial study that has the impact for change. Garrett Hardin's essay is shorter than many I wrote a SOAS and yet must be rated among one of the most influential philosophical/political works of the twentieth century. I say philosophical rather than ecological because I think the wider influence has been more important; I suspect other ecologists were already aware of the problems Hardin discusses but it was his essay that was picked up on and brought the phrase 'tragedy of the commons' into common usage.
Read it yourself, here is a link
The Tragedy of the Commons and The Tragedy of the Commons Revisited by Beryl Crowe
There is also a copy at Columbia Univ but it is a pesky pdf and does not open easily on my browser.
Can anyone think of other short essays that have been so influential and eclipse all works by the same author?
Now, I have to admit that i could not help thinking that my essay The Insolent Boy: Chairil Anwar Poet Maudit was just as good, if not better, and it had pictures too. But somehow it did not get the publicity it deserved and lies neglected on my hard drive.
Bloody chattering classes!