History Main / TerraDeforming

* Exagerrated in the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union]], where "Man bending Nature to his will" was kind of a running topic, and some engineers went as far as wanting to melt the ice caps to make tundra more livable and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_river_reversal turn Siberian rivers around to feed agriculture in Central Asia]]. [[RealityEnsues Needless to say]], such bold moves [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea rarely turned out well]].

* ''VideoGame/Sly2BandOfThieves'' villain Jean Bison lived this trope. Having become a HumanPopsicle during the Canadian Gold Rush and later thawed out due to [[ClimateChange global warming]], 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.

* ''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.

** During the events of "Literature/ThePsychohistorians" and "The General", the protagonists visit Trantor, the capital CityPlanet of the Galactic Empire. It's [[DomedHometown covered in steel]], and the only plants allowed to grow are on the grounds of the Imperial Palace. Making them [[TerminallyDependantSociety dependent on other worlds for food]].

* ''Literature/PhulesCompany'': ''Phule's Errand'' introduces the planet Ron'n'art which is ''[[DomedHometown totally roofed over]]'', up to a mile from the surface. Making it an extreme example of a CityPlanet. Ron'n'art is noted as having a richly deserved reputation for decadence, corruption, and paralysis of every agency. If it weren't for the robots and automated systems, [[TerminallyDependantSociety nothing would get done and everyone would starve]].

[[folder: Truth In Television ]]

* 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 he's marooned on the now barren island as LaserGuidedKarma.

* The novella "Literature/TheWordForWorldIsForest" by Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin.

* In ''Franchise/StarWars'', the capital planet of Coruscant is one large city.
* The Genesis Device from ''Film/{{Star Trek II|The Wrath of Khan}}'' and ''Film/{{Star Trek III|The Search for Spock}}'' probably counts. It 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 also 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.

* Asimov's ''Literature/{{Foundation}}'' series depicts the one-city planet of Trantor.
** For those who haven't read this series, Star Wars's Coruscant was inspired by Trantor.
* ''Phule's Errand'' (part of the ''Literature/PhulesCompany'' series) introduces the planet Ron'n'art which is ''totally roofed over'', up to a mile from the surface. Making it an extreme example of a Planet City. Ron'n'art is noted as having a richly deserved reputation for decadence, corruption, and paralysis of every agency. If it weren't for the robots and automated systems, nothing would get done and everyone would starve.

People who try TerraDeforming see any area that is not housing humans, catering to humans, or creating resources for humans as wasted and views any effort to convert it into a human-usable space as a good cause. These changes often take place, or are predicted to take place, TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture. Because ScienceMarchesOn, these ideas have devolved into {{Zeerust}} and lead to the almost inevitable unfortunate implication that HumansAreTheRealMonsters.

* The first two verses of "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Yellow_Taxi_(song) Big Yellow Taxi]]" by Music/JoniMitchell.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_bowl The Dust Bowl]] of the 1930s was caused by excessive agricultural development on the North American prairies. Post-UsefulNotes/WorldWarI wheat prices were very high so many farmers added more land to their farms and plowed it. In some areas land cultivation almost tripled between 1925 and 1930. This removed the grasses that kept the soil in place and preserved moisture in the soil. Additionally, a long-term wet period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries lead farmers to believe that the area normally was much wetter than it really was under normal circumstances; indeed, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_follows_the_plow it was believed by some farmers at the time that human habitation in an area increased rainfall]]. When a drought period started in the 1930s all the dried-up unprotected soil was picked up by the winds and blown away causing massive dust storms. In many regions, over 75% of the topsoil was blown away by the end of the 1930s. Combined with the Great Depression this caused enormous poverty in the region and by 1940 2.5 million people had moved out of the Plains states to escape it.

* A silver age ''{{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.

* In the original ''Magnus Robot Fighter'' comic, North Am was a city that covered most of the North American continent.

* The novella "The Word For World is Forest" by Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin.

* Exagerrated in the SovietUnion, where "Man bending Nature to his will" was kind of a running topic, and some engineers went as far as wanting to melt the ice caps to make tundra more livable and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_river_reversal turn Siberian rivers around to feed agriculture in Central Asia]]. [[RealityEnsues Needless to say]], such bold moves [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea rarely turned out well]].

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_bowl The Dust Bowl]] of the 1930s was caused by excessive agricultural development on the North American prairies. Post-WorldWarOne wheat prices were very high so many farmers added more land to their farms and plowed it. In some areas land cultivation almost tripled between 1925 and 1930. This removed the grasses that kept the soil in place and preserved moisture in the soil. Additionally, a long-term wet period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries lead farmers to believe that the area normally was much wetter than it really was under normal circumstances; indeed, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_follows_the_plow it was believed by some farmers at the time that human habitation in an area increased rainfall]]. When a drought period started in the 1930s all the dried-up unprotected soil was picked up by the winds and blown away causing massive dust storms. In many regions, over 75% of the topsoil was blown away by the end of the 1930s. Combined with the Great Depression this caused enormous poverty in the region and by 1940 2.5 million people had moved out of the Plains states to escape it.

* Easter Island.

* The first two verses of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Yellow_Taxi_(song) Big Yellow Taxi]] by JoniMitchell.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_bowl The Dust Bowl]] of the 1930s was caused by excessive agricultural development on the North American prairies. Post-WorldWarOne wheat prices were very high so many farmers added more land to their farms and plowed it. In some areas land cultivation almost tripled between 1925 and 1930. This removed the grasses that kept the soil in place and preserved moisture in the soil. Additionally, a long-term wet period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries lead farmers to believe that the area normally was much wetter than it really was under normal circumstances. When a drought period started in the 1930s all the dried-up unprotected soil was picked up by the winds and blown away causing massive dust storms. In many regions, over 75% of the topsoil was blown away by the end of the 1930s. Combined with the Great Depression this caused enormous poverty in the region and by 1940 2.5 million people had moved out of the Plains states to escape it.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_bowl The Dust Bowl]] of the 1930s was caused by excessive agricultural development on the North American prairies. Post-WorldWarOne wheat prices were very high so many farmers added more land to their farms and plowed it. In some areas land cultivation almost tripled between 1925 and 1930. This removed the grasses that kept the soil in place and preserved moisture in the soil. When a drought period started in the 1930s all the dried-up unprotected soil was picked up by the winds and blown away causing massive dust storms. In many regions, over 75% of the topsoil was blown away by the end of the 1930s. Combined with the Great Depression this caused enormous poverty in the region and by 1940 2.5 million people had moved out of the Plains states to escape it.

* In episode 6 of ''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.

* In ''StarWars'', the capital planet of Coruscant is one large city.

* In 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.

* In one episode of ''{{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 ''NorthernExposure'', Maurice Minnifield sees Alaska as just a huge opportunity for business.

[[folder: Western Animation]]
* As a species, the Gems from ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' spread across galaxies, colonizing planet after planet, gutting them for resources. Their initial plans for Earth would have made it completely unsuitable for human life; the Crystal Gems are horrified by said plans, but Peridot is enthusiastic by how wonderful it could have all been. [[spoiler: Ultimately, her impetus for betraying Yellow Diamond isn't because she changes her viewpoint, but because she thinks that destroying Earth to simply get one geo-weapon and to enact revenge is illogical and a waste of resources.]]

* ''Phule's Errand'' (part of the ''[[PhulesCompany Phule's Company]]'' series) introduces the planet Ron'n'art which is ''totally roofed over'', up to a mile from the surface. Making it an extreme example of a Planet City. Ron'n'art is noted as having a richly deserved reputation for decadence, corruption, and paralysis of every agency. If it weren't for the robots and automated systems, nothing would get done and everyone would starve.

* This is basically the policy of the government in ''SilentRunning'', in which the last remaining forests are housed in satellites orbiting Earth. This of course annoys the Conservationist hero no end, resulting in the film's GreenAesop.

* The Genesis Device from ''Film/{{Star Trek II|The Wrath of Khan}}'' and ''Film/{{Star Trek III|The Search for Spock}}'' probably counts. It 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 also planned to use it one 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.

[[folder: Literature ]]

* Asimov's ''{{Foundation}}'' series depicts the one-city planet of Trantor.

* [[SnowcloneCatchphrase In Soviet Russia]], of course, [[WeHaveReserves Nature does not need YOU]].

* Part of the {{Backstory}} of ''{{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.