Economic growth today continues to impact the environment in harmful ways from population growth, species extinction, desertification, pollution, resource depletion and environmental damage. As one commentator put it plainly, "Everything must be sacrificed to grow our GDP. The environment, ownership of our assets, our open spaces, our sense of fairness, our health and mental wellbeing, the poor and vulnerable. Why? Because increasing GDP will mean we have the wealth to fix all the things we sacrificed in the first place!"