Discuss the evidence on whether economic growth is bad for the environment.

Significant evidence indicates that richer societies spend much more money on keeping their respective environments healthy than do poorer societies. Economic growth and rising living standards are good for the environment because as societies get richer, they tend to spend more on things like reducing emissions from smokestacks, preventing the dumping of toxic chemicals, and insisting that sewage be purified before its water is returned to the environment. They also tend to have better protections for sensitive ecosystems and engage in greater amounts of habitat preservation for endangered species. There is evidence that not only can economic growth go together with a healthy environment, but that economic growth actually promotes a healthy environment by making people rich enough to pay for pollution reduction technologies that people living in poorer countries cannot afford.