History Main / TerraDeforming

* The Ford Motor Company wanted to control every aspect of their car manufacturing, so they bought some property in Brazil in the late 1920s and set up a rubber plantation and city known as [[{{Egopolis}} Fordlândia]]. The Brazilian government was actually on board with this for a while -- rubber trees used to be an exclusive product to South American jungles, but once Britain got a hold of rubber tree seeds and began producing their own rubber plantations in their colonies, Brazil was in need of economic rejuvenation, and they believed Ford's infrastructure could create it. However, [[GoneHorriblyWrong this ended up being a total disaster]] due to everyone involved (mostly the foreign Americans) severely underestimating [[EverythingTryingToKillYou just how brutal the Amazon would be]], from the heat, to the wildlife, to the various blights [[ShaggyDogStory that would make actually growing rubber trees near-impossible]], to say nothing about the severe culture clash between the American and Brazilian workers. By the time World War II began and synthetic rubbers became more commonplace, the town was effectively deserted. Today, Fordlândia is actually still populated by a few thousand people, and ironically, there's a sporadic tourism scene that puts on display the standing, but long-abandoned buildings and machines as they become reclaimed by nature.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'': The capital CityPlanet of the Empire is Coruscant.

* In one episode of ''Series/Space1999'', the Alphans make contact with Earth, where it's a couple of centuries later due to Relativity or something, and the entire population lives in domed cities because the outside environment is toxic. That exact phrase "Who needs nature" has become something of a {{catchphrase}}, and you get the sense that nobody on Earth is too bothered about the loss of the ecosystem. For that matter, the writers don't seem too bothered either, making it something of an evaded [[AnAesop aesop]].

[[folder: Anime & Manga ]]

* In episode 6 of ''Manga/KimbaTheWhiteLion'', Kimba visits the World's Fair and sees, among other things, plans to melt the frozen polar regions so the space will be habitable.
* Part of the {{Backstory}} of ''Anime/{{Patlabor}}'' is the Babylon Project, a massive public works project intended to fill in Tokyo Bay to alleviate overpopulation. This is not portrayed as evil, just a fact of life, though there are numerous protest groups against it, including some eco-terrorists.

-->'''Garaku''': At that time, lumber was the main source of building materials and fuel. All the woodlands in Japan were laid bare. All the greenery you see here was planted after that time.

[[folder: Comics ]]

* A silver age ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' comic shows the Fortress of Solitude surrounded by buildings, because future humans have intentionally melted the polar ice caps in order to colonize the Arctic. Superman is upset by this, not because of the catastrophic effect on the environment, but because he doesn't have privacy anymore.

[[folder: Film ]]

* The Genesis Device from ''Film/{{Star Trek II|The Wrath of Khan}}'' and ''Film/{{Star Trek III|The Search for Spock}}'' is an [[EarthShatteringKaboom awesome weapon]] made of [[ArtifactOfDoom doomed phlebotinum]] (and you often get a large side order of Nemesis with your terraforming)... but also, the environments that it makes tend to collapse. In the Federation's defence, the Genesis Device wasn't ''intended'' as a weapon. They planned to use it on lifeless worlds, limiting the moral problems. In the {{novelisation}}, it's explained that Reliant was searching not just for lifeless worlds but worlds which were projected to NEVER be able to develop life on their own -- even the faintest traces of amino acids would rule a world unsuitable for being remade this way.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Literature/{{Foundation}}'':

* In ''Literature/TheTripods'' series, The Masters, alien overlords of earth, have "laid waste" to lands too far away from their three cities, located in Asia, Europe and one of the Americas. They also plan to replace Earth's atmosphere with their poisonous alien one.
* In Creator/KimStanleyRobinson's ''Literature/RedMarsTrilogy'', this is a large part of the conflict between the Greens and the Reds, the latter of whom believe Mars should stay pristine and lightly-settled. Note that one of the original reasons for this was in order to determine whether or not there was any life on Mars before the colonization.
* The novella "Literature/TheWordForWorldIsForest" by Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin has Terrans logging the planet Athshe (wood is now rare on Earth) and converting it into farmland. At the start of the book, the antagonist Davidson overdoes the logging causing an island to be made useless for farming because all the soil has eroded away. After the Athsheans revolt they maroon him on the now barren island as LaserGuidedKarma.
* Would it surprise you to find that this trope is a heroic virtue in ''Literature/AtlasShrugged''? From Dagny Taggert:
-->''"But think how often we've heard people complain that billboards ruin the appearance of the countryside. Well, there's the unruined countryside for them to admire." She added, "They're the people I hate."''
::Later she looks at a waterfall near her wilderness cabin retreat and thinks that it should be turned into a hydroelectric plant.
** Then there's the scene at the start of ''The Fountainhead'' where Roarke, the architect hero, looks out over a landscape and fantasizes about turning the trees and rocks into construction materials.
* The Eighth Men in ''Literature/LastAndFirstMen'' are a technologically adept but spiritually arid HumanSubspecies. They live on a [[TerraForming terraformed]] Venus which they turned into "an engineer's paradise [...] Every inch of land served some industrial or agricultural end".

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* In one episode of ''Series/{{Space 1999}}'' the Alphans make contact with Earth, where it's a couple of centuries later due to Relativity or something, and the entire population lives in domed cities because the outside environment is toxic. That exact phrase "Who needs nature" has become something of a CatchPhrase, and you get the sense that nobody on Earth is too bothered about the loss of the ecosystem. For that matter, the writers don't seem too bothered either, making it something of an evaded aesop.
* In the last episode of ''{{Series/Dinosaurs}}'', Earl ends up destroying all plant life on the planet to get rid of these vines that were growing everywhere as a result of the bugs that would normally eat them having gone extinct (Wesayso built a wax fruit factory on their breeding grounds, thus killing all the bugs).

* In ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', it's mentioned that plans are underway on Earth to raise a new continent from the Atlantic seabed, presumably to provide more living space for people. No mention is made of how this might affect global hydrodynamics and climate, or what marine life might be wiped out in the process. This was never, ever mentioned again afterwards, however; perhaps someone, in-universe or otherwise, realised the potential for unintended consequences and vetoed it?

[[folder: Music ]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]
* ''TabletopGame/{{Space 1889}}'' progress-minded Europeans see areas not used for some sort of direct benefit for humans as wasted. In 1889 wilderness conservation is barely in its infancy.

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* ''VideoGame/Sly2BandOfThieves'' villain Jean Bison lived this trope. Having become a HumanPopsicle during the Canadian Gold Rush and later thawed out due to GlobalWarming, his mindset is that of a nineteenth century golddigger, consequently wanting to dam every river and cut down every tree for...[[FurryConfusion humanity]] to use.

[[folder: Real Life ]]

->''"That's the problem with nature. Something's always huh stinging you or oozing mucus on you. Let's go watch TV."''

* The Ford Motor Company wanted to control every aspect of their car manufacturing, so they bought some property in Brazil in the late 1920s and set up a rubber plantation and city known as [[{{Egopolis}} Fordlândia]]. The Brazilian government was actually on board with this for a while -- rubber trees used to be an exclusive product to South American jungles, but once Britain got a hold of rubber tree seeds and began producing their own rubber plantations in their colonies, Brazil was in need of economic rejuvenation, and they believed Ford's infrastructure could create it. However, [[GoneHorriblyWrong this ended up being a total disaster]] due to everyone involved (mostly the foreign Americans) severely underestimating [[EverythingTryingToKillYou just how brutal the Amazon would be]], from the heat, to the wildlife, to the various blights [[ShaggyDogStory that would make actually growing rubber trees near-impossible]]. By the time World War II began and synthetic rubbers became more commonplace, the town was effectively deserted. Today, Fordlândia is actually still populated by a few thousand people, and ironically, there's a sporadic tourism scene that puts on display the standing, but long-abandoned buildings and machines as they become reclaimed by nature.

* The Ford Motor Company wanted to control every aspect of their car manufacturing, so they bought some property in Brazil in the late 1920s and set up a rubber plantation and city known as [[{{Egopolis}} Fordlândia]]. The Brazilian government was actually on board with this for a while -- rubber trees used to be an exclusive product to South American jungles, but once Britain got a hold of rubber tree seeds and began producing their own rubber plantations in their colonies, Brazil was in need of economic rejuvenation, and they believed Ford's infrastructure could create it. However, [[GoneHorriblyWrong this ended up being a total disaster]] due to everyone involved (mostly the foreign Americans) severely underestimating [[EverythingTryingToKillYou just how brutal the Amazon would be]], from the heat, to the wildlife, to the various blights [[ShaggyDogStory that would make actually growing rubber trees near-impossible]]. By the time World War II began and synthetic rubbers became more commonplace, the town was effectively abandoned.

* The Ford Motor Company wanted to control every aspect of their car manufacturing. So they bought some property in Brazil in the late 1920s and set up a rubber plantation. They didn't bother to bring any experts in farming and rainforests and it was a major failure. It was called Fordlandia.

->''"That's the problem with nature. Something's always stinging you or oozing mucus on you. Let's go watch TV."''

* The draining of the Florida swamplands (actually a giant slow-moving river running through the center of the state) in the 1930s-1950s, so it could serve as farmland to grow sugarcane. Eventually resulted the water table becoming flooded with ocean water, severe damage from hurricanes (since they removed the vegetation that was holding the so in place), and the discovery that without the forests and grasslands, the soil itself was too poor to grow much of anything.