You don't have to choose between economic growth and protecting the environment. They are two sides of the same coin.
Economic growth is all about efficiency. You are always doing more with less; faster, better, cheaper. Any waste is inefficiency.
When a car exhausts CO2 or nitrous oxide into the troposphere you lose heat and energy that makes an ICE less than 100% efficient. Also - there has been a rise in the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere that can be linked to human activity so it seems likely that at some point somebody will be willing to pay to try to recapture that gas which could mean that many of us that have been releasing it will have gotten a free ride.
This is not a new idea and it's certainly not my idea. It is also not a complete solution for environmental problems. It is clearly impossible for us in the current time to accurately calculate the eventual full costs of a current action. Small actions have a ripple effect and interact to create larger problems.
But as with anything difficult that doesn't mean that we shouldn't even make an attempt.
