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Space/Science » in reply to re: Terraforming socialistic?

re: Terraforming socialistic?
ER — (archived)

I picked those three examples deliberately, as you've probably guessed by now. The Everglades were drained with public funds but the benefit went to big private landowners who bought when it was still financially worthless. In the Netherlands, it was a centuries-long project, and although I don't really know the answer, I suspect it was a joint corporate/public partnership. Since Holland was dominated by small private farms, the result seems benficial to all converned.The Amazon deforestation is a combination of big ranching operations and small homesteaders, the former will mostly raise cattle, the latter will go broke after a few seasons because the soil is so poor. There is little government interference except for the roads which precipitate the development.

The environmental damage in the everglades can be forgiven, they had no way of knowing in those days just what a great resource they were squandering. And they certainly had no way of knowing how valuable a "worthless swamp" would be today just as a source of potable water. No one really knows the environmental damage that will result from the Amazon basin development, but I suspect it will be enormous. Not only that, the renewable resources, such as valuable hardwoods, which are now lost forever, will also be a huge economic loss which could have benefited those nations for centuries to come.

The Dutch example is harder to gauge. But I'm sure the environmental damage has been more than made up for by the rich farmland, transportation canals, and other productive uses the land has been put too. Some environmental damage is inevitable, but it's worth it if you get a functioning, long-term economic benefit out of it, and if the "terraformed" landscape is maintainable and does not negatively affect its surroundings too severely.

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