Knowledge and the environment

Some recent analyses suggest that future increases in knowledge will, more or less automatically, alleviate or even eliminate future environmental pro blems. Here we examine this issue. First, we discuss whether a knowledge ex plosion is indeed occurring, addressing some of the problems with assessing knowledge-growth We next consider whether growth in knowledge will help th e environment; we ask whether future advances in knowledge are likely to as sure benign environmental outcomes, and discuss physical limitations of red ucing resource consumption. Finally, we outline policy interventions that w ould help produce and implement environmentally helpful knowledge. Although knowledge-growth can help attenuate future environmental problems, we are skeptical as to the ability of advances in knowledge to offset fully the ad verse environmental impacts of continued growth of population and per-capit a consumption. The ongoing shift from a material-based to a services-based economy reduces, but does not eliminate, the significant environmental impa cts associated with the increasing scale of economic output. in addition, t he ability of the economy to replace certain key natural resource inputs wi th knowledge inputs must eventually encounter limits. Public policy has a c rucial role both in discouraging environmentally damaging forms of consumpt ion, and in promoting the generation and diffusion of environmentally benef icial knowledge. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.