>The commons are where we all live, breathe, work, and play. To say they don't matter is to completely ignore what it is to be human.

I can't speak for your life but I spend the vast majority of my time on private property--including where I live, the air I breath, when I'm at work and when I play--not in any commons.

>the air I breath

That's pretty interesting, do you purchase it or do you generate and store it yourself.

Neither. Even by today's property rights, the owner of a piece of land is granted x hundred feet of sky above their property, making the air breathed there privately owned.

I don't think it does that at all. You have rights to the space above your property, you have severe limitations on your right to modify the make up of the molecules that make up the air.

Would private ownership provide some means to prevent poisoning that atmosphere?

See: http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=99f0bd4d8deafa1761d...

You are correct that the ownership of the air above and around your property is severely limited when compared to the ownership of say land, water or minerals. 19th century courts abandoned the concept that factory smoke was a trespass on someone's air and weakened the concept of property rights in regards to ownership of air, ushering in this modern day tragedy of the commons. Obviously had the courts made the opposite rule, the amount of air pollution we face today would be much smaller.

I would LOVE to see you try to stop someone from breathing the air above your property.

Seeing as someone would have to be physically present on your property to breath your air, I'm not sure what would make kicking a trespasser off your land so exciting. There's probably videos on YouTube showing how people have handled trespassers on their property.

Or I could lean over, which would put my feet off your property, and my nostrils on the edge of your property, which would still allow me to suck the air off from your property.

Or, I could simply rent a glider or a hot air balloon, and float over your property.

Since air molecules have fluid boundaries, and since it is a non-scarce and fungible resource, the concept of ownership of air around your property does not mean ownership of specific molecules.

Yup, just keep moving those goalposts.

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