This is quite simple. Markets ignore the commons, hence a free market solution can't - or is highly unlikely - to work. No one is going to clean up the commons, just as they didn't in medieval villages, because there is no incentive for an individual, or a specific group, to do so. The tragedy of the commons is one reason to have governments, because everyone wants something done that no one will do "off their own bat" - but they are prepared to chip in a donation towards the government doing it, or organising somone else to do it. And if no one does it, we all end up worse off (perhaps fatally so in this case). It ain't rocket science, although game theory has something to say about it.
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