Responding to climate change as a transformative stressor through metro-regional planning

This paper characterises climate change as a “transformative stressor”. It argues that institutional change will become increasingly necessary as institutions seek to reorientate governance frameworks to better manage the transformative stresses created by climate change in urban environments. Urban and metropolitan planning regimes are identified as central institutions in addressing this challenge. The operationalisation of climate adaptation is identified as a central tenet of a comprehensive urban response to the transformative stresses that climate change is predicted to create. Operationalisation refers to climate adaptation becoming incorporated, codified and implemented as a central tenet of urban planning governance. This paper has three purposes. First, it examines conceptual perspectives on the role of transformative stressors in compelling institutional change. Second, it establishes a conceptual approach that characterises climate change as a transformative stressor requiring institutional change within planning frameworks. Third, it reports emergent results and analysis from an empirical inquiry which examines how the metro-regional planning regime of Southeast Queensland has responded to climate change as a transformative stressor via institutional change and the operationalisation of climate adaptation.     

The Employment and Productivity Effects of Environmental Taxation: Additional Dividends or Added Distractions?

Claims of employment and productivity gains from environmental taxation are examined in the context of recent policy developments which have extended the traditional role of economic instruments in environmental regulation. Although the general existence of such spin-offs cannot be established, the debate has clarified guidelines for designing and implementing specific environmentally based taxes to help deliver sustainable development. Recent UK tax proposals have started to draw on the flexibility of fiscal instruments to tackle environmental problems. Innovations include earmarking taxes to fund allied spatial and sectoral programmes, recycling revenues to provide fiscally neutral improvements in tax efficiency and using taxation to help promote eco-efficiency.     

Thermocoagulation of fetal sacrococcygeal teratoma

Fetal sacrococcygeal teratoma can lead to a high output cardiac failure resulting in hydrops fetalis. One of the prenatal therapeutic options is to occlude the feeding vessels by radiofrequency ablation. We present a case of fetal sacrococcygeal teratoma diagnosed at 13 weeks of gestation. The tumour increased in size more than 100-fold over 5 weeks causing polyhydramnios and cardiac and placental enlargement. Thermocoagulation was performed at 18 weeks' gestation by passing an insulated electric wire through an 18-gauge needle placed close to the feeding vessels of the tumour at its neck. Blood supply to the tumour was successfully reduced. However, fetal death was diagnosed 2 days after the procedure. We speculate that it may be safer to limit the extent of coagulation in one attempt but to repeat the procedure at a later stage when necessary. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Response to Narveson

Our massive tampering with the world's interdependent web of life-coupled with the environmental damage inflicted by deforestation, species loss, and climate change-could trigger widespread adverse effects, including unpredictable collapses of critical biological systems whose interactions and dynamics we only imperfectly understand. Uncertainty over the extent of these effects cannot excuse complacency or delay in facing the threats ... We the undersigned, senior members of the world's scientific community, hereby warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated. (Union of Concerned Scientists, 1992)     

Use of environmental DNA in assessment of fish functional and phylogenetic diversity

Assessing the impact of global changes and protection effectiveness is a key step in monitoring marine fishes. Most traditional census methods are demanding or destructive. Nondisturbing and nonlethal approaches based on video and environmental DNA are alternatives to underwater visual census or fishing. However, their ability to detect multiple biodiversity factors beyond traditional taxonomic diversity is still unknown. For bony fishes and elasmobranchs, we compared the performance of eDNA metabarcoding and long-term remote video to assess species’ phylogenetic and functional diversity. We used 10 eDNA samples from 30 L of water each and 25 hr of underwater videos over 4 days on Malpelo Island (pacific coast of Colombia), a remote marine protected area. Metabarcoding of eDNA detected 66% more molecular operational taxonomic units (MOTUs) than species on video. We found 66 and 43 functional entities with a single eDNA marker and videos, respectively, and higher functional richness for eDNA than videos. Despite gaps in genetic reference databases, eDNA also detected a higher fish phylogenetic diversity than videos; accumulation curves showed how 1 eDNA transect detected as much phylogenetic diversity as 25 hr of video. Environmental DNA metabarcoding can be used to affordably, efficiently, and accurately census biodiversity factors in marine systems. Although taxonomic assignments are still limited by species coverage in genetic reference databases, use of MOTUs highlights the potential of eDNA metabarcoding once reference databases have expanded.