[yamazakiwi]

There is a scale to influencing change in the environment. Any amount of change is not "messing up" with ecosystems, as you put it.

Unintended consequences are possible/likely/imminent, but that doesn't mean they are always unexpected/uncontrollable/cataclysmic.

[mohamedattahri]

I disagree, because I think the scale is relative to the size and complexity of the ecosystem you're touching, not the size of your influence. They're unpredictable and unexpected, and that's why we tend to refer to them as unknown unknowns.

But like you said, they're not necessarily catastrophic or cataclysmic.

Back to the context, I just don't think someone can say for sure that changing the very nature of a thousand square miles piece of land in the middle of some of the least studied terrain types will be great and won't have any bad consequences.

[yamazakiwi]

I didn't say that the scale wasn't relative to the size or complexity. I'm saying that any amount of change in an ecosystem isn't necessarily "bad".

Contextually, I can see why you're a skeptic of this amount of land changing having an undeniable "good" influence, but the size could absolutely not be a factor at all.

I'll use your words but change the last part to illustrate better what I'm saying: "I just don't think someone can say for sure that changing the very nature of a thousand square miles piece of land in the middle of some of the least studied terrain types will be good because...It sounds right and I'll choose that answer even though I don't actually know."

Also saying "changing the very nature of" is quite dramatic.

[anigbrowl]

This is valid, but have to use some sort of heuristic or things will continue to get worse as we struggle to assign probabilities to the manifold possibilities.