Environment and Development

I work with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) in the Environmental sector. Most of the people in my office are engineers, and most of those engineers comply with the Environmental regulations in their designing of roads and bridges, but only because they have to. My bosses in the Environmental section deal with a lot of disagreements, but they also have the joy of getting to see a lot of environmental stewardship move forth through the government.

I do not mean to say that engineers are not environmentally-friendly; in fact, I have been pleasantly surprised with how well the engineers are willing to work alongside the Department of Natural Resources and the Army Corps of Engineers as well as the WisDOT Environmentalists. There are some people who are even interested in improving the environment on their own time. What I mean to discuss is the way that, in this particular workplace where development and the environment collide, it is markedly parallel to the world at large.

There are some engineers at WisDOT that just want to do their job and be done; they spend as little time and effort as possible making the minimum environmental requirements on their construction projects. These are fairly typical of, say, the people who live their life regardless of what they have as an impact to the environment, or at the very least doing the very minimum for the environment. There are some people who are willing to work with more than just the minimum in their construction projects and they understand that doing more has a positive impact in the future and doesn’t necessarily take away from their project- it just takes a little more time and effort. These are people who don’t have to help with the environment, however in their interest with stewardship in the resources that are available to them or in their appreciation of the resources that they grew up with they may choose to show their appreciation by conserving it in some way. When it comes to development, it may look like choosing not to build a new home but instead renovate an old one, or to use more efficient farming or forestry practices. Usually this looks like someone who goes a step further than they need to because they want to, to reduce their impact on the envrironment or to simply not be greedy with the resources available to them. And of course, in the workplace, there are the ones who have chosen to make environmental stewardship their vocation. These are the advocates or the ones who, in the world at large, dedicate their lives and their lifestyles to the protection of the environment.

With all that said, I know that in my workplace it is generally understood that the development is necessary but the environment should be protected, and as such the environment rarely has a say on whether the development happens or not. Usually the environment only slows down the process or changes the way the development is done, or makes the process more labor-intensive and therefore, more expensive. So is it truly worth restoring and protecting the environment over development? I think so from a moralistic and aesthetic standpoint, and yet I also understand its lack of efficiency. But if we life all of our lives without advocating for or protecting the environment, we run may into the issue of not having an environment, or any resources, to protect.