Facing the Future of Environmental Law Practice

摘要

Predicting the future of environmental law practice over the next ten years is a risky business. Environmental law itself is a field characterized by a diversity of legal approaches to scientific uncertainty. Moreover, environmental practice is repeatedly responding to unpredictable events and discoveries, many of which have led to changes in the applicable law or to new environmental statutes. Nonetheless, some predictions can reasonably be made. We can predict, for example, that human demands for limited resources will, if unchecked, surpass sustainable thresholds in Third World countries. Even in affluent countries, achieving sustainability will require fundamental changes in many of our wasteful practices. We can also predict that the globalization of environmental pollution will continue to increase, and that environmental law and policy in die United States will likely be increasingly influenced in the future by regulatory standards established in other countries.