pymmer, with your background you know that any human activity have an effect on the environment, potentially for the bad but potentially also for the good. Look at any big city, obviously it is not the way it used to be let us say 1 million years ago, dramatic changes have taken place, good or bad?.

If you look at the United Nation's prospherity index, countries highest on the list also consume the most energy per capita with Canada near the top. In fact the energy consumed by the average North American is equivalent to having more than 2000 slaves each. Further, the average world citizen consume annually more than 200 kg of steel, the annual steel production is 1 billion tonnes and with 5 billion people you get that number.

That is the reality of the world we are living in, we consume a lot to maintain our standards of living. Will this have impact on the environment, surely. Al Gore won the Piece Price for his environmental stand, while on the other hand as an individual citizen for sure is among the world 10 top polluters based on his travels, mega house, cars, etc.

I think as individuals we should minimize pollution and protect the environment, but we have to do it in the context of the world the way it actually operates. Companies and governments have the responsibility to help us live good and healty lifes while trying to minimize any negative impact on the environment, but for sure any human activity will cause changes, like it or not