Could life in solar system complicate space settlement?

On Apr 13, 2012, at 5:01 PM, Lucio de Souza Coelho wrote:

> Going back to the subject of space exploration, it seems hard for me
> to see how for instance deforestation or whatever would be a
> survivability issue for colonists,

For space settlements the ecological issues are much more immediate.
Small ecosystems, like those inside space settlements, are pretty
unstable. It is really quite easy to run out of O2 or get too much
CO2 -- meaning too much for humans to survive. Space settlers will
either be environmentalists or dead.