Question

which is more important, increasing people's standard of living,
or
protecting the environment?​

Answer 1

Increasing everyone's standard of living is much more important. Only when the people have an increased standard of living are they even able to do things that will protect the environment. Lessons from history. That'll depend on what standard of living do you use as baseline.

Answer 2

According to me, both increasing the standard of living and protecting the environment are equally important, but protecting the environment should be our first priority.

• If we protect the environment and its creations then it will help us live to the fullest. In today's world, we are trying to protect the environment by adopting the method of sustainable development.
• There are multiple situations where it is witnessed that protecting the environment will protect humanity. For example, deforestation leads to global warming which in turn results in an increase in temperature. If we could have saved trees from cutting it would have helped to maintain an optimum temperature throughout the world.
• Using natural resources is good but exploiting the available natural resources is bad and we are suffering from a shortage of natural resources. The exploitation of coal and natural gas is an example of it. Using nature's gifts judiciously will help us increase our standards of living.