Originally all forests were all growth forests, so should we have never violated the land and stayed in the stone age? At some point we need to compromise. > I

Originally all forests were all growth forests, so should we have never violated the land and stayed in the stone age? At some point we need to compromise. > It is fundamentally impossible to completely undo things, trivially so from the second law of thermodynamics. As in, undo things as a reasonable person would define them. Undoing burning gasoline could indeed involve taxing such that we produce more hydrocarbons (which is possible to do), but what good does burying oil do? I don't agree with much of the article; I think we should benefit from the bounty of the universe and I believe in property rights and the ability to own land. However, more reasonable externalities are still relevant (such as putting pollution into a shared atmosphere or body of water) or potentially even some economic or social externalities. And as the article hints at, addressing the externality of who gets access to the free bounty of the universe. But its premise: "none would be profitable if environmental costs were fully integrated" is flawed, because the prices would just rise and consumption would decrease if externalities were incorporated.