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TULSI-PRAJNA July-Sept., 1992 terms, it also has various environmental consequences. The loss of forest cover, the loss of arable soil, the loss of productivity through disease and malnutrition and increasing pressure on fragile ecosystems which so often result from the poverty are as significant as the pollution created by industrial technology and overconsumption of the affluent society, both lead to the rapid depletion of natural resources.
Environmental impact represents the environmental cost of a given economic process. It gives the amount of an agency external to the eco-system which by intruding upon it, tends to degrad its capacity for introduction of substances, which are foreign to environment, into the natural environment by the production & consumption activities of the human beings; the ever increasing population is using the earth as if its resources are limitless, in its pursuit for economic growth.
The degree of environmental damage associated with economic growth varies among countries according to the development stage, composition of national product, production techniques employed, assimilative and regenerative capability of the environment and peoples' perception of the environmental problems.
It is generally held by many economists that sustained economic growth increses human welfare. Keynes, for example, saw economic growth as a pre-requisite for the good life. But the question arises whether there is a "trade-off” between the rate at which we expand the output of goods and services and the rate at which the quality of the environment deteriorates. The opposition to growth voiced by those who believe there is inevitably a close relation between the rate of growth of GNP and the rate of decay of the environment. However, if it is, it should be seen that a cessation of growth will not provide a solution to the problem. To drop all the way down to a zero rate of economic growth would not stop the rate at which it deteriorates. Even if it is true that a cessation of econmic growth would mean a cessation of environmental deterioration, it is not likely that the problem could be solved this way., since it is a word problem. However, if continuing growth meanscontinuing environmental decay, there would seem to be no escape from eventual disaster. If it is possible to bring about appropriate changes in the composition of the growing output and in the technology employed to produce that output, growth in the future may do more to slow the deterioration in the environment than a situation of no growth could, assuming that could be realized in practice.
Sometimes, economic growth can help preserve the environment
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