I don’t think it’s as evil as it is myopic. This story is specifically about ignoring long term effects to an entire ecosystem to sustain operations that are apparently not sustainable without sacrificing an entire ecosystem in the long term.

Industrialization is nearly always the practice of punting long term issues to another part of the world or to another generation.

I would assert that most industrialists are looking to maximize profit through economies of scale with little to no concern for sustainability. That’s how it started and I think that’s how it ends.

So, I guess maybe being myopic at scale is evil.