Environmental Abuse

Environmental Abuse
By Vernon Stent

Abuse of our environment arises from actions that cannot be sustained by nature. For instance, if 3 trees are felled in order to make way for a new house, then nature has lost three trees and any offspring forever. This is not sustainable.

If, after felling the three trees,  four new trees are planted in an alternative location where growth and reproductive prospects are the same as in the previous location, then this is sustainable. Why four trees, you may ask? Two reasons: 1, because not all saplings survive into maturity, 2. to compensate for the time lag before the new trees reach the age of those that were replaced. This is a simple example to illustrate the point. In reality, the calculation for restocking tree plantings involves many factors and is quite a bit more complicated!

Power Stations - a Special Case
Another example: if a power station is to be environmentally friendly then it should either ensure that no pollutants or excess carbon dioxide is pumped into the environment or take alternative actions that will restore the quality of the environment. Historically we know this has not been achieved. If the cost of making power stations environmentally sustainable was reasonable then we would have done it long ago. The fact that this is a widely known problem has led to a major misconception across society that being environmentally friendly costs money. This is simply not the case. Modern power stations are generally far kinder to the environment than older ones. They still pollute the environment, but not nearly as much as the older ones did. To translate the power station experience to other aspects of life, and industry in particular, is a mistake.