I confidently believe that the environment is more important than the human progress. What do you choose - to be dead and rich or to be alive and poor? I choose the latter, since if you're dead, you need no welfare .
You should know that industrial companies emit daily tens of thousands of tons of CO2 into the environment. Only a very little share of them are official, the other share is hidden for avoiding taxes. What officials do? Officials, as well as producers, are more interested in the economic part, not the social one. Thus, they don't hasten to punish too much the producers, since the country's economy must be raised.
Do you think it's fair? To me, the taxes on environment pollution must be at least 3 times higher than the assessed harm.