This game made me empathize less and less with environmentalists. Forests are an impediment to a transport network. Wildlife are pests. Renewable energy has extremely low ROI.
> Imagine yourself living in a perfectly balanced natural environment. With total freedom. A place where your ancestors have been the inhabitants for centuries. Evolving, understanding, and being part of this peaceful world and rich ecosystem. Totally integrated. On this land you can get aliment easily, due the lack of serious predators and pollution, and with the friendly company of your fellows, the only thing you have to take care is food, relax, and reproduction.
> Imagine that suddenly, something falls down from the sky. Something that starts the extraction of the minerals, and the eradication of your forests. Even further. Imagine that this newcomer, making use of the stolen resources, starts the production of massive machines aimed to automate the robbery and the production of a never ending factory which creates not only pollution in the air and water, desertification on the land, and starvation for your people, but also, creates heavy weapons in order to exterminate you and your entire species.
> Wouldn't you be angry? Isn't that newcomer a sick bastard?
https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-69
Games are abstractions, and in abstractions, all of the complications are stripped away to focus on a specific mechanic. Abstractions in real world reach breaking points: at a certain boundaries, water operates as a different state of matter, in which a "liquid" abstraction/conception no longer applies.
I wish there were a way to restore the environment like planting trees in order to also remove the pests.
There are mods that will let you plant trees.
Planting trees will reduce pollution, and that in turn will lead to you getting bothered less by biters, the native life forms of the planet.
Procedural rhetoric is an awesome concept and one that I'd wish to be seen discussed more often.
And I second your statement.
It's funny you should say that. I noticed that nuclear energy in Factorio is waste-free, and (at least without mods) there's no risk of a nuclear reactor suffering a meltdown and massively damaging large areas of your base.
Also, it was interesting to see just how massive a solar panel array you'd have to have in order to match even a coal power plant, never mind a small nuclear power plant.
On the other hand, Factorio's factories pollute, and fighting hard to reduce pollution is a major part of the game.