Parched Power Plants: The Role of Markets and Technology in Power Plants’ Drought Responses
During droughts market plants in certain regions experience generation reallocation toward less water-intensive, cheaper natural gas-fired plants.
Research
Can Gene Editing Increase Ecosystem and Species Resilience?
Discover how CRISPR technology is revolutionizing conservation by potentially bringing back the American Chestnut Tree, balancing ecological benefits with the complexities of genetic innovation.
Power Play: Political Contributions and Regulatory Capture in the Electric Utility Industry
We compare data from states that allowed public utility donation with states that didn't. Findings suggest that relaxed public utility rules hurt consumers.
CGO Abundance Poll
The CGO polled 1,000 Americans about abundance, technology and innovation, immigration, and America’s prospects for the future.
Adapting to Climate Change through Migration
Climate change will impact humans in many diverse ways. The greatest impact, however, will be felt by people living in the Global South.
Methods for Sustainable and Wildlife-Friendly Agriculture: Case Studies from the Western US
The private working lands of the West are changing. These trends put habitats and some of America’s most productive working lands at risk.
NEPA Timelines for Clean Energy Projects: Understanding Delays in Clean Energy Development
The US faces the challenge of transitioning its energy away from fossil fuels, an undertaking that will require new energy infrastructure.
Can Private Agricultural Lands Contribute to Carbon Sequestration?
Climate change, driven by CO2 and other human-made greenhouse gases, stands as a paramount challenge in society today.
Wildlife Crossing Ahead: Costs and Benefits of Avoided Collisions
Every year in the United States wildlife vehicle collisions (WVCs) kill over 200 people and injure 26,000, costing more than $8 billion.
Bringing NEPA Back to Basics
If we are to address the challenges of our time, we must not let NEPA keep one hand tied behind our backs.
The Impact of Wildfires on Internal Migration in the United States
With more wildfires, the costs of fighting and recovery rise, leading to greater allocation of taxpayer funds to protect at-risk communities.
What Policies Promote Abundance?
If Congress and other policymakers take the right steps in important areas, then abundance is within reach.
Estimating the Impact of Critical-Habitat Designation on the Values of Developed and Undeveloped Parcels
When private land is designated as critical habitat for an endangered species, does that change the value of the land?
Crowdsourcing Conservation: How to use community science to advance public and private conservation
This policy paper examines conservation projects using crowdsourcing to determine if it is a useful tool for advancing conservation efforts.
CGO Abundance Poll October 2022
The CGO polled 1,000 Americans to learn what they think about abundance, technology and innovation, and America’s prospects for the future.
Carbon Taxes without Tears?
This paper explores a modest but not insignificant opportunity to put a price on carbon that doesn’t raise consumer prices.
Energy Superabundance: How Cheap, Abundant Energy Will Shape Our Future
In this policy paper, authors Austin Vernon and Eli Dourado explore what life would be like with endless energy.
The Taxonomic Basis of Subspecies Listed as Threatened and Endangered under the Endangered Species Act
In this paper, authors Robert M. Zink and Luke B. Klicka examine—according to modern standards—the validity of subspecies currently listed.
Making Private Lands Count for Conservation: Policy Improvements toward 30×30
How can private land be counted in the 30 x 30 efforts proposed by the Biden Administration? Megan Jenkins and Harrison Naftel explain.
Public Interest Comment: Interagency Efforts to Develop the American Conservation and Stewardship Atlas
In this comment authors examine two promising tools for private conservation that should be included in the US' 30 by 30 efforts.
Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants
The Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed a rule to rescind their 2020 habitat definition.
Chapter 5: Contracting and the Commons: Linking the Insights of Gary Libecap and Elinor Ostrom
In 2009, Elinor Ostrom won the Noble memorial prize in economics sciences for, in the words of the prize committee, “demonstrating how local property can be successfully managed by local commons without any regulation by central authorities or privatization.” This account of Ostrom’s contribution focuses on how her work presented a “third way” of governing […]
High West Meets American Prairie
This paper describes how a non-profit and a for-profit business helped save one of the last grassland ecosystems in the world.
Red Tape That Stops Engines in Their Tracks
This solution benefits everyone by saving taxpayers and protecting homes, requiring innovation-friendly protections for its success.
Chapter 4: Population Growth and the Governance of Complex Institutions: People Are More Than Mouths to Feed
Discussions of Elinor Ostrom’s key contributions to the study of polycentric governance of complex institutions are often framed as a challenge to biologist Garrett Hardin’s classic essay “The Tragedy of the Commons” (TC). Ostrom herself used the word “challenging” to describe TC, a contribution that both encapsulates and expands on Hardin’s then long-standing concern with […]
Chapter 1: Resource Governance in the American West: Institutions, Information, and Incentives
1. Polycentric Governance Much of Ostrom’s work refutes the notion that there is “a single solution to a single problem.”8 She argues instead that “many solutions exist to cope with many different problems.”9 Specifically, much of her work has explored the conditions under which local resource users can develop bottom-up, self-governing institutional arrangements to manage resources—but a […]
Chapter 3: Pacific Salmon Fisheries Management: An (Unusual) Example of Polycentric Governance Involving Indigenous Participation at Multiple Scales
1. The Polycentric Governance System of the Pacific Salmon Regime As Elinor Ostrom and her coauthors illustrated, common-pool resource management faces at least two broad types of collective action problems: “appropriation” problems and “provision” problems. One of the things that makes the salmon SES so complex is that the various governance functions addressing these types […]
Chapter 6: The Environmental Benefits of Long-Distance Trade: Insights from the History of By-Product Development
Size (and Scale) Matter: Addressing Ostrom’s Critics In his classic article “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Garrett Hardin famously declared that “ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.” Elinor Ostrom disagreed. She argued that, even in […]
Chapter 2: Self-Governance, Polycentricity, and Environmental Policy
1. Self-Governance and Democracy Both Elinor and Vincent Ostrom drew a distinction between governing over others and governing with others. Governing with others is one of the fundamental features of a democratic society. Democracy, in the Ostroms’ view, is not just a system of voting; it is a system of how people relate to, tolerate, […]
Introduction
Utah State University has had a long-term involvement in water resources management in the Dominican Republic. A few years ago one of us (Randy Simmons) visited the Dominican Republic’s National Institute for Water Resources. Behind a counter on the main floor of their offices, an entire wall was taken up by a map of the […]