Impact of High Standards of Living on Environment: Social and Economic Changes

According to Ravallion (2017), standards of living refer to the certain levels of the
comfort, goods, materials, necessities and wealth that are needed as well as made available to a
certain section of the society that exists within a country or any other territorial boundaries. The
standard of living of a person might include various other factors like income of the person and
other such factors that might help the concerned people to understand the socioeconomic strata
wherein the person might belong. The following essay relates to the various ways in which the
social changes and the economic changes within the lifestyle maintained by the concerned
individual. The matters that pertain to the increase in standards of living that results in social
changes mainly increase in private car ownership per household and economic changes
particularly growth in tourism industry create serious effects on the environment or not is
becoming an issue that is generating debate among people. However, critics argue that due to
this trend families try to purchase more cars that consume less fossil fuels such as compact cars
while opponents hold the view point that growth in tourism industry can be ecologically
beneficial as government enforce laws to control the tourism industry to preserve the
environment. The supporters, claim that high quality of living reflected through social changes
that more private cars increase in pollution and greenhouse gas emission. Apart from this, the
economic changes show growth in tourism industry which leads to deforestation and also
clearing wildlife destruction in certain areas.
It is obvious that in areas where people enjoy high standards of living, there is an increase
in the number of private cars per household has led to growing concerns regarding emissions.
The increase in the number of private cars has in turn led to the increase of the release of the
toxic elements into the atmosphere, especially carbon monoxide and other greenhouse gases that
are released into the atmosphere by (Firnkorn and Müller 2011, n.p.). In Australia, one third
house have one car, more than 50% of houses have two or more cars, and 2% of households
(178,000) have more than five cars (Salt 2017, n.p.). In UK, car ownership increased from 19
million in 1971 to 31 million in 2007 (Leibling 2008, p.3). These cars contribute to greenhouse

gas emissions like in Australia, 49.2% emissions emitted from 1990 to 2016 which is equal to
59.5 megatons (Patel and Woodley 2016, n.p.). The reports suggest that 26% of carbon dioxide
gas is emitted from cars in UK (Independent.co.uk 2018, n.p.). Moreover, in China 8688 million
of tones of these gases released in year 2012(Shan et.al 2018, n.p.). Therefore, the rise in
standards of living socially could harm the environment.
Conversely, opponents claim that families owning more than one car can have benefits
for the environment. This is due to the fact that the families are trying to purchase fuel efficient
cars that might serve the purpose of curbing down fuel consumption. The compact cars being
small in size tend to consume lesser amount of fuel thereby leading to the lowering of the levels
of the air pollution (Tirumalachetty, Kockelman and Nichols 2013, n.p.). In UK, for example,
150,00 hybrid cars were sold up to May 2018 (Nextgreencar.com 2018, n.p.). In Australia, 12154
units of these cars are sold in 2016 which is higher than the year 2013 to 2015 (Costello 2017,
n.p.). These compact cars reduce the gas emissions for instance, 366.9 million tons of carbon
dioxide emits in year 2017 which is lower than the 378.9 million tons in 2016 in UK
(Assets.publishing.service.gov.uk 2018 p.3). Hence, people have high living of standard they
may buy more compact cars to reduce the pollution and make environment safe.
However, it is not necessarily true that there has been an increase in the purchase of fuel
efficient cars in all countries enjoying high standard of living. The residents of these countries
tend to rely on the age-old models of cars that run mostly on fossil fuel and thereby contribute to
the increase in the pollution levels within the country. This in turn affects the environment of the
concerned country and the global environment as a whole. This in turn leads to the air pollution
which in turn proves to be harmful for the environment in the long run (Poudenx 2008, n.p.). The
residents of both developing as well as the developed countries are reported to buy cars that run
on the conventional fuels like petrol and diesel due to the shortage of the funds that they might
invest (Burke and Zhu 2015, n.p.). Thus, it might be said that the increase in the number of

private vehicles in the households have led to the increase in the release of the pollutants in the
environment thereby impacting it in a negative way.
In the terms of economic changes, high standards of living increase the growth in the
tourism industry which affects the environment, in terms of the land forests to build more hotels,
more tourist sites like theme parks and golf courses. This might lead to the disruption of the
wildlife as well as the natural environment of the concerned area. Almost 96000 hectares of
forests were cleared on an annual basis majorly for the purposes of developments in the field of
tourism in Malaysia (Clean Malaysia 2018, n.p.). Furthermore, in cape tribulation rainforest are
endangered due to tourist industry for making new roads, picnic point, in Australian continent
(Rainforest Information Centre Educational Supplement). Thus, it might be said that
deforestation due to the increase in tourism following improvement in standards of living has led
greater degradation of the environment.
Certain economists contend that the growth in the tourism industry can be
environmentally beneficial because authorities started to introduce stricter laws and new
initiatives to protect the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 in
Australia tends to employ the various laws for the protection of the natural heritage of the area,
the wetland areas that exist within the country that bear international importance, the ecological
communities and the places that bear heritage importance (Miller et al. 2015, n.p.). The Brazilian
government has implemented the various laws that are monitored by the Ministry of
Environment of the country that was created in the year 1992 (Duchelle et al. 2014, n.p.). The
reports by the Environmental Protection Agency state that the Chinese government has been
taking the measures that are related to the degradation of the environment in the country. The
government in the country has been known to be implementing stricter laws that are related to
the revival of the conditions within the country (Glasson and Therivel 2013, n.p.). The
curtailment of the tourism industry might have led to the protection of the flora and the fauna of
the concerned territories.