Economic Growth and the Environment

Will the world be able to sustain economic growth indefinitely without running into resource constraints or despoiling the environment beyond repair? What is the relationship between a steady increase in incomes and environmental quality? Are there trade-offs between the goals of achieving high and sustainable rates of economic growth and attaining high standards of environmental quality? For some social and physical scientists such as GeorgescuRoegen and Meadows et al., growing economic activity (production and consumption) requires larger inputs of energy and material, and generates larger quantities of waste by-products. Increased extraction of natural resources, accumulation of waste and concentration of pollutants will therefore overwhelm the carrying capacity of the biosphere and result in the degradation of environmental quality and a decline in human welfare, despite rising incomes.57 Furthermore, it is argued that degradation of the resource base will eventually put economic activity itself at risk. To save the environment and even economic activity from itself, economic growth must cease and the world must make a transition to a steady-state economy.