Beyond the Smokestack: Environmental Protection in the Service Economy

October 2000

Citation:

ELR 10856

Issue

Author

James Salzman

Introduction

Sometimes new notions capture our fancy, resonate to some element of our experience, and color the way we see the world. The concept of a post-industrial society is just such a notion. It gives voice to our experience of big changes, shapes our perceptions of their tone and texture, and organizes our understanding of their direction. But the notion obscures the precise location of those changes and their meanings.¹

The service-oriented economy—the Information Revolution—and sustainability are synergistic. . . . Greater environmental efficiency will require as an enabling capability the Information Revolution, while the latter will in turn be strongly encouraged by the need for the former, and . . . the two will be integrated into an economic structure heavily focused on services.²

James Salzman is an Associate Professor of Law at Washington College of Law at the American University. This Article was drafted while the author was a visiting professor at Stanford Law School and a visiting scholar in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University in 1998-1999. This Article is reprinted in part, with modifications, from an article of the same name in the December 1999 issue of the UCLA Law Review. This Article has been edited by the Environmental Law Reporter's staff.

Beyond the Smokestack: Environmental Protection in the Service Economy

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Beyond the Smokestack: Environmental Protection in the Service Economy