The concept of ‘development’ in our perspective as human beings is generally aimed at exploiting, controlling, or otherwise “improving” upon nature for our benefit.
This is despite the fact that an immeasurable number of processes in nature have been optimized and are continually adjusted by evolution. Disturbances on these natural processes by our ‘development’ are likely to result in negative environmental consequences.
The conservation of mass principle and the first law of thermodynamics (i.e., conservation of energy) further dictates that whenever material resources or energy are moved around or manipulated for ‘development’, environmental consequences are inescapable.
Finally, the second law of thermodynamics stipulates that order can be increased within a system (such as the human economy) only by increasing disorder or entropy outside the system (i.e., the environment). Thus, technologies can create “order” in the human economy (i.e., order as manifested in buildings, factories, transportation networks, communication systems, etc.) only at the expense of increasing “disorder” in the environment. Studies have shown that increased entropy is likely to be correlated to negative environmental impacts.
In conclusion, despite the desperate need to advance, at every point we need to give deeper consideration to the impact of our activities on the environment and when possible, endue inconveniences in our systems for the sake of sustaining our environment.