Overview

Within the interaction between humans and their natural environment four stages are prominent.

The first stage is characterised by the presence of subsistence economies. These largely exist in a circular relationship with nature by extracting or depositing no more than that which grows anew in or can be absorbed by the local environment.

The second stage is marked by an overburdening of natural resources through their exploitation for extraction or waste disposal purposes. However, the burdensome events and their effects remain local, even though this may have disastrous consequences for the local population. As a result, social and governmental measures to mitigate the damage remain local or national and often rather weak.

The third stage is characterised by an increase in the severity of burdens. One such burden is that the causation chain of environmental issues transgresses local borders and spreads over a wider area; another is that single incidents of local damage accumulate and contribute to the endangering of overarching entities, such as whole species or the ozone layer. Both of these burdening effects have triggered regional and international institutions of environmental protection.

It seems that a fourth stage has been reached. The domestic and the cross-border causation chains have multiplied to the extent that the complex bio-physical-chemical mechanics of the biosphere as a whole are put under strain. Not only do environmental ‘problems’ of a planetary magnitude appear, but the earth is afflicted as a system.