Seven trends are identified that may call for reorientation in environmental research and policies. These are
• An increasingly ‘total’ concept of environment, tracing risks to more and more destinations with greater concern about fairness to different populations
• Rising spatial concentration of industry, with the possibility that manufacturing will take place largely in only a few regions, especially in Japan and the Pacific Rim
• Emergence of a new manufacturing style with unmanned factories and closed materials flows
• Expanding importance of electronics and biotechnology for the environment
• Waning of the radical vision of a return to a rustic, more ‘natural’ life
• Growth of giant cities
• Intensification of competition among nations for industrial leadership
In turn, directions for environmental research are identified:
• Complexes of causes and effects, and cumulative impacts
• Long-term technological change and its relation to environmental history
• Paradigms or theories of environmental evolution
• Applications of ecological theory
• Setting standards for the environment per se, in contrast to setting standards to achieve objectives primarily relevant to human health
• Chemistry of the atmosphere
• Inherently safer and cleaner technologies
One conclusion is that technological trajectories may mean that some problems that have peaked in Western industrialised countries seem likely to reach new peaks in other areas.
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