Driver license renewal by mail in California

Drivers under the age of 70 whose prior 4-year accident and conviction records showed no entries when examined 2 months prior to the date of expiration of their driver licenses were randomly assigned to either a group that renewed licenses in the normal manner or a group that was offered the opportunity to receive a 4-year license extension by mail. A related experiment involved comparing clean-record drivers of any age who were given a 2-year extension with a group of drivers required to renew in person. Examination of driver records 18 and 28 months subsequent to extension uncovered no deleterious effects of the program, while savings of roughly 3 million dollars annually are expected. Findings are tentative, however, until 4-year data can be collected. The report concludes that the extension program has been successful, that multiple extensions should be authorized and evaluated for drivers with continuing clean records, and that the present exclusion of drivers 70 and above does not appear to be defensible.     

Tuning to station wiify on ISO 14000: What's in it for you?

“The impact of ISO 14000 will be swift and significant. For businesses exporting to global markets, and their suppliers, preparing for ISO 14000 today is not an option—it's a matter of survival…”.     

Reviews

DESIGN ON THE LAND: the development of Landscape Architecture Norman T. Newton Belknap Harvard

COMMUNITY CENTERS AND STUDENT UNIONS Eugene D. Sternberg and Barbara E. Sternberg Van Hostrand Reinhold Company, New York.

DECISION AND CONTROL by Stafford Beer, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 1966 (3rd printing, 1970)

INDUSTRIAL DYNAMICS by Jay W. Forrester, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1961. S.1O.5O.

PRINCIPLES OF SYSTEMS by Jay W. Forrester. Wright‐Allen Press, Inc., Cambridge, Mass., 1968.

PUBLIC INQUIRIES AS AN INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT R.E. Wraith and G.B. Lamb George Allen & Unwin Ltd. for the Royal Institute of Public Administration, London 1971, £4.50.

SYSTEMS APPROACH AND THE CITY M.D. Mesarovic and A. Reisman (eds.) North‐Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam and London, 1972.

SIMULATION IN THE CLASSROOM John L. Taylor and Rex Walford Penguin Books, London, 1972. 45p.

DEVELOPMENT BUILDING: THE TEAM APPROACH C.W. Griffin John Wiley & Sons, Inc. for the American Institute of Architects, New York, 1972.     

Planning environmental sanitation programmes in emergencies

Environmental sanitation programmes are vital for tackling environmental-related disease and ensuring human dignity in emergency situations. If they are to have maximum impact they must be planned in a rapid but systematic manner. An appropriate planning process comprises five key stages: rapid assessment and priority setting; outline programme design; immediate action; detailed programme design; and implementation. The assessment should be based on carefully selected data, which are analysed via comparison with suitable minimum objectives. How the intervention should be prioritised is determined through objective ranking of different environmental sanitation sector needs. Next, a programme design outline is produced to identify immediate and longer-term intervention activities and to guarantee that apposite resources are made available. Immediate action is taken to meet acute emergency needs while the detailed programme design takes shape. This entails in-depth consultation with the affected community and comprehensive planning of activities and resource requirements. Implementation can then begin, which should involve pertinent management and monitoring strategies.     

Organic solute accumulation in osmotically-stressed Enteromorpha intestinalis

The role of organic solutes in the osmotic adjustment processes of the marine macroalga Enteromorpha intestinalis (L.) Link was investigated in 1986, using fresh samples collected from mid-shore rock pools at Tayport, Fife, Scotland. Natural-abundance ¹³C nuclear magnetic-resonance spectroscopy revealed -dimethylsulphoniopropionate (DMSP) to be the only major low molecular weight organic osmolyte present. However, on transfer to a hypersaline medium (300% sea water; 100%=35 S), tissue sucrose and proline levels increased markedly, while DMSP remained constant. Recovery of optimal photosynthetic activity and increases in inorganic ion levels occurred over a similar time scale to the changes in sucrose and proline (within 48 h), indicating that these two organic solutes are involved in hyperosmotic adjustment in E. intestinalis while DMSP is not. Freshly-collected plants transferred to 300% sea water medium in the dark showed no significant increases in organic osmolytes. In contrast, starch-enrichment (16 d continuous illumination) led to enhanced synthesis of sucrose and proline in the light and in darkness, but tissue DMSP levels showed no variation throughout. These observations suggest that DMSP is not involved in short-term osmoacclimation in E. intestinalis.     

Countering resistance to protected‐area extension

The establishment of protected areas is a critical strategy for conserving biodiversity. Key policy directives like the Aichi targets seek to expand protected areas to 17% of Earth's land surface, with calls by some conservation biologists for much more. However, in places such as the United States, Germany, and Australia, attempts to increase protected areas are meeting strong resistance from communities, industry groups, and governments. We examined case studies of such resistance in Victoria, Australia, Bavaria, Germany, and Florida, United States. We considered 4 ways to tackle this problem. First, broaden the case for protected areas beyond nature conservation to include economic, human health, and other benefits, and translate these into a persuasive business case for protected areas. Second, better communicate the conservation values of protected areas. This should include highlighting how many species, communities, and ecosystems have been conserved by protected areas and the counterfactual (i.e., what would have been lost without protected area establishment). Third, consider zoning of activities to ensure the maintenance of effective management. Finally, remind citizens to think about conservation when they vote, including holding politicians accountable for their environmental promises. Without tackling resistance to expanding the protected estate, it will be impossible to reach conservation targets, and this will undermine attempts to stem the global extinction crisis.     

The role of agri‐environment schemes in conservation and environmental management

Over half of the European landscape is under agricultural management and has been for millennia. Many species and ecosystems of conservation concern in Europe depend on agricultural management and are showing ongoing declines. Agri‐environment schemes (AES) are designed partly to address this. They are a major source of nature conservation funding within the European Union (EU) and the highest conservation expenditure in Europe. We reviewed the structure of current AES across Europe. Since a 2003 review questioned the overall effectiveness of AES for biodiversity, there has been a plethora of case studies and meta‐analyses examining their effectiveness. Most syntheses demonstrate general increases in farmland biodiversity in response to AES, with the size of the effect depending on the structure and management of the surrounding landscape. This is important in the light of successive EU enlargement and ongoing reforms of AES. We examined the change in effect size over time by merging the data sets of 3 recent meta‐analyses and found that schemes implemented after revision of the EU's agri‐environmental programs in 2007 were not more effective than schemes implemented before revision. Furthermore, schemes aimed at areas out of production (such as field margins and hedgerows) are more effective at enhancing species richness than those aimed at productive areas (such as arable crops or grasslands). Outstanding research questions include whether AES enhance ecosystem services, whether they are more effective in agriculturally marginal areas than in intensively farmed areas, whether they are more or less cost‐effective for farmland biodiversity than protected areas, and how much their effectiveness is influenced by farmer training and advice? The general lesson from the European experience is that AES can be effective for conserving wildlife on farmland, but they are expensive and need to be carefully designed and targeted.