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88 VIKTOR GLIED to conflicts in the 1990s and 2000s, or greatly contributed to their outbreak. When an ecosystem sustains damage and is incapable of healing itself, it is human intervention alone that might create a new balance. The actors of this necessary intervention will also be humans, just like those who caused the deterioration. It is therefore important to emphasize that a conflict cannot — or should not — be managed with the same tools as those that caused it. The change in the atmosphere’s potential to absorb carbon dioxide intensifies the greenhouse effect. This, in turn, changes the thermal conditions of our planet and leads to a rise in the atmosphere’s average temperature. The slow but steady rise of the average temperature is capable of altering a great many ecosystems, pushing them to extremes. These mutually intensifying problems will, in turn, generate challenges which can be expressed in a simple question: Will humanity have the ability and the will to adapt to these well-nigh irreversible changes? If the answer is in the affirmative, political and economic decision-makers will have to exercise far greater prudence and responsibility, and every individual greater self-restraint, than today. This process will not take place overnight, and in knowledge of human history and the human psyche, the chance that we are capable of taking this important step currently appears slim. If the answer is No, then we will have to count on diverse collapses and breakdowns under more extreme and disastrous circumstances than today, when the challenges facing us will no longer be simple environmental conflicts but instead life-and-death struggles for dwindling natural resources. The only way to counter the degradation (deterioration) of the environment is to eliminate the causes of the decline. The “elimination” may be part of the regulation of a given process. The best solution is not having to deal with the factors that cause degeneration because regulation and control have ruled them out. This is called prevention, which is most effective when the legislator or decision-maker explicitly obstructs the destruction or pollution of the environment. When the decay could not be prevented, various other possible solutions such as moderation or adaptation enter the picture. They also depend on social and political decisions, which leads us back to the original problem. The interpretation of the factors which cause environmental conflicts also forms a subject of debate. For a long time, the political and economic actors believed that natural resources were inexhaustible. They thought that everything humankind needed was at their disposal without limits. In the 1970s, it dawned on people that this was far from being the case. Natural resources turned into commodities and services under the conviction that everything could be commercialized: fresh water could be bottled and sold, raw materials could be transported in huge volumes, arable land could be acquired and expropriated and air temperature could be changed inside and, gradually, outside as well. We accepted that all these goods were provided for us when there were 5 billion people on Earth and we accept it today when there are 8 billion. The growing number of people, however, need more living space and more goods to consume. Larger systems have a larger demand for energy, while social needs can only be satisfied with higher living standards all over the world. Prevalent economic theories posit that satisfying the need for higher living standards goes together with steadily growing economic performance in order to ensure broader employment and higher quality of the major supply systems. All this would not automatically entail the degradation of the quality of the environment, if decision-makers did not pursue a path of economic growth
