People believe that it is improbable for the economy to improve while being environmentally friendly. However, others, including myself, do not subscribe to this idea. I firmly assert that we can in fact grow the economy while still taking care of nature.
On the one hand, some say that for the economy to prosper, we must exploit every ounce of environmental resources we have. This mindset is deeply rooted in our capitalist society, both in the past and in the present: we first took advantage of forests and converted them into agricultural areas to generate profit from the demand for food, then, as we entered the Age of Enlightenment, we realized that some of these lands are excellent places to put up factories. Either way, we prioritized nothing but money and we regarded nature as something to be used and not respected. As such, this perpetuated and further reinforced the belief that in order to expand our economy, we must only consider money.
On the other hand, many argue that such shouldn’t be the case and that economic prosper and environmental awareness can and should coexist; they can even have a positive mutual relationship with each other. For example, providing enough funds for the environment allows it to flourish thereby improving the tourism sector. Better natural surroundings also has significant positive impacts on our health as the air quality and the weather become much more tolerable. Lastly, taking care of the environment drastically reduces the number of disasters that we experience such as landslides, floods, and forest fires. These benefits altogether improve the economy in the long run.
In my own opinion, it is very much possible for our economy to progress whilst taking care of the environment. Protecting nature has a lot of indirect monetary benefits and we just have to recognize that.
In summary, though unethically taking advantage of nature could dramatically propel a country’s economy to greater heights, we should recognize that caring for the environment also has its benefits because our tourism, health, and safety would be greatly improved if we do so. This would, in turn, though not immediately, make our economy better.