Will a rise in the national standard of living worsen or improve the country's environmental conditions?

Will a rise in the national standard of living worsen or improve the country's environmental conditions?
The rise in the national standard of living in the long term willimprove the country's environmental conditions. However, in theshort term, the country's environmental conditions will initiallyworsen. When raising the minimum wage (in order to improve standardof living) this may seem like a good idea but in reality it willnot be what people think. Businesses are under strict direction tomaintain a certain employee salary/wage minimum/maximum hours oramount to be paid. By raising the minimum wage to be higher, andnot addressing where the money will come from within the companiesbudgets, the initial reaction from the companies will be to cut theemployees hours down and make a smaller amount of people do theamount of work needed with more people. Therefore, initially itwill decrease standard of living because employees will have toobtain more than 1 or 2 jobs and worry about the means oftransportation to get to and from and scheduling conflicts etc.