replenish themselves.
A special problem with respect to the application of the prisoner's dilemma to the problem of the commons is that the prisoner's dilemma usually involves entities making choices which yield an immediate result or at least a result which follows the choice in a relatively short time. The entities know what will happen when they choose between two or more possible decisions. In the case of the environment, however, choices made today may have consequences which do not appear in the environment for a great length of time. For example, the pollution of the air did not occur overnight, but is a result of decisions and actions made years ago by individuals and corporations who perhaps were not even aware of the future damage they doing, or at least not as aware as we are today.
Therefore, the problem of the commons is made even more urgent because the problems of the environment, by the time they are detected and diagnosed, can be so severe that they eithe
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