Economic Growth and the Environment
The issue of economic growth and the environment essentially concerns the kinds of pressures that economic growth, at the national and international level, places on the environment over time. The relationship between ecology and the economy has become increasingly significant as humans gradually understand the impact that economic decisions have on the sustainability and quality of the planet.
Economic growth is commonly defined as increases in total output from new resources or better use of existing resources; it is measured by increased real incomes per capita. All economic growth involves transforming the natural world, and it can effect environmental quality in one of three ways. Environmental quality can increase with growth. Increased incomes, for example, provide the resources for public services such as sanitation and rural electricity. With these services widely available, individuals need to worry less about day-to-day survival and can devote more resources to conservation. Second, environmental quality can initially worsen but then improve as the growth rate rises. In the cases of air pollution, water pollution, and deforestation and encroachment there is little incentive for any individual to invest in maintaining the quality of the environment. These problems can only improve when countries deliberately introduce long-range policies to ensure that additional resources are devoted to dealing with them.
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