Conclusion


We can now admit without any doubt that the Aral Sea crisis is the result of a large and brutal human impact, followed by the interaction between complex mechanisms present in nature. This crisis and the steps which led to it epitomize our lack of understanding of our environment, as well as the scale at which we are now able to impact on nature. The limits posed by intrinsic properties of some geographical places, like the arid plains in which cotton-growing is artificially sustained, have proven us empirically wrong about nature's capacity to provide not so much for our needs as our fantasies driven by economical and political reasoning. Forcing nature into adapting fast to a demand of unprecedented scale has brought us the consequences that we described which seemed to pose no threat at first yet turned out to be disastrous on the long run. Now that we better comprehend these consequences and the forces that have driven them, we hopefully will make more informed decisions in the future. The fragility of the balance present in nature combined with vast and abrupt changes due to human society triggered an immensely complex set of changes in the environment, some of which are irreversible. Thresholds have been crossed, and while that cannot be changed, it is still worth the effort of reversing some of the feedback loops. We must act in every instance when we can have a great impact on restoring the Sea, the same we have destroying it.