A Larger Experiment

A public good such as controlling global warming tends to be exploited by people and thus becomes a tragedy of commons problem. The direct costs for an individual to be altruistic is larger than the benefits that the individual will receive in return. A new article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (link) shows that one mechanism to bolster altruistic behavior is to publicly acknowledge the good behavior and thus link the behavior to a person's reputation.

In a normal public goods game the most profitable route is to rely on the altruism of others and have no cost, only benefit. The authors of this PNAS article contend that individuals might instead contribute to preventing global warming if the personal benefits paid out in good reputation is high enough. Individual benefit from reputation + benefits from individual cost of preventing global warming > cost of preventing global warming.

This is an easy enough concept. However reputation is built on many acts of altruism, whether or not acts of preventing global warming is valued enough by others to merit an increase in good reputation exists is unclear. (Aren't they too crunchy?) Risking life and limb to save another human is not the same as recycling your milk jugs. The costs are not the same nor are the benefits the same. Is the gap lessened by driving a hybrid? What about biking to work and planting six trees?

On a final note, today when I went to Trader Joe's, I only used my three reusable canvas bags for my groceries.