IEA Policy Analyst Alexander Hammond has written an article for Human Progress suggesting that economic prosperity is not necessarily  harmful for the environment.

Alex argues that although economic growth necessitates some environmental damage, once nations have achieved a certain level of prosperity, they cease to cause as much damage to the environment as they once did:

“The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis posits that environmental damage increases in tandem with economic growth, but only until a certain level of income is reached. Once people are wealthy enough not to have to worry about day-to-day survival, environmental degradation stops, and ecosystems begin to recover.”

Read the full article here.