Using the commons as a cesspool does not harm the general public under frontier conditions, because there is no public, the same behavior in a metropolis is unbearable.

California medicine 113 (5): 40–47. BioScience 36 (9): 599–606. S.

His exposition of the tragedy of the commons in a 1968 paper called attention to "the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment". [page needed]. He is also known for Hardin's First Law of Human Ecology: "You cannot do only one thing" which expresses the interconnectedness of every action.