The ever-increasing rates of consumption in developed nations, coupled with the newfound wealth in emerging markets such as Brazil and India are most certainly damaging the environment. Progress, so often defined in GDP as production and consumption, is therefore not possible.
We need to weed out the concept of planned obsolescence so ingrained in corporations and manufacturers today. Products must be made to last, so that we do not keep ourselves in a cycle of endless (and needless) buying and disposing.
The relative lack of feasible, affordable alternatives to fossil fuels also means that our economies are sustained by environmental ‘damage’. Electric cars, carbon capture and storage and solar panels are not full-fledged solutions today and so we have to tap onto more and more oil and coal.
That is not to say that progress is not possible. Clean energy and green technologies are evolving and should serve a growing proportion of the world’s needs. Environmental conservation and progress are not incompatible.
This is further evidenced in the push towards the ‘green economy’. As Barack Obama outlined in his 2008 campaign, research and development of clean energy and other environmental initiatives create jobs and contribute to the economy. Not only is progress possible without damaging the environment, environmental conservation itself can be a driver of economic progress.
Finally, a nation’s progress should not be perceived as solely economic and therefore, correlational to environmental damage. ‘Environmental progress’, in the form of sustainability and resource conservation, must be recognised as a real and valuable indicator of how far we have come as a human race.