Originally Posted by goober

I took a course in college called "Environmental Economics", the professor was promoting systems that would align market incentives with environmental concerns to avoid the tragedy of the commons.
He pointed out that of the thousands of species that have gone extinct, no domesticated animal had ever been threatened with extinction, even though they are slaughtered in greater numbers than any wild species.
Ownership provided stewardship, and this should be extended to the great commons of the world, the lakes, the rivers, the seas, the atmosphere.
That if the fish of the sea were owned, the owners would set catch limits that would maximize their long term gains, that if the atmosphere was owned, the owners would limit pollution to maximize the economic benefits, etc.
His example was that of riparian rights, which were thrown out of US common law in the 1800's as a hindrance to industry. Under riparian rights owners of waterfront property can sue and for loss of economic benefits caused by pollution. So a factory that discharged pollution into a river would have to compensate all those downstream for the loss of fishing and swimming and drinking water that was caused by their pollution, making water treatment cheaper than releasing the pollutants.
In Scotland, one of the most industrialized landscapes in the world, there are still clear pristine streams that run through heavily industrialized areas, because the fishing rights are owned by someone who can sue and recover for fish kills caused by pollution, which makes it cheaper to avoid polluting those streams.
The legal framework for this doesn't really exist in the world today, and I'm not sure what it would look like, only that the Nation-state would probably not be a part of it.