Simplified planning zones — a reaction to the proposals

The Government has recently published Lifting the Burden which includes the proposed legislation on Simplified Planning Zones. This paper, based on recently undertaken research, specifically considers the reaction of a sample of local authorities and private agencies to the proposals.     

Interactions of secondary amines with bentonite clay and humic materials in dilute aqueous systems

The speciation of dimethylamine, diethylamine, dibutylamine, and diethanolamine on bentonite clay saturated with 1) Na and Ca cations, 2) dodecyltrimethylammonium cation, and 3) tannic acid, and on humic acid and peat, has been studied. Adsorption isotherms were determined and the effect of ionic strength and pH on the adsorption were studied. The results show that the amines react with the particulates by ion exchange mechanisms. Hydrogen bonding seems to also contribute to the binding of dibutylamine.     

A review of: “Agricultural Chemicals and the Environment Issues in Environmental Science and Technology”

5, 1996 Ed. Hester, R. E. and Harrison, R. M., Royal Society of Chemistry, Isbn 0 85404 220 2, Pp Xii + 128, $ 17-50.     

The roles of tolerance in the evolution, maintenance and breakdown of mutualism

Tolerance strategies are cost-reduction mechanisms that enable organisms to recover some of the fitness lost to damage, but impose limited or no cost on antagonists. They are frequently invoked in studies of plant–herbivore and of host–parasite interactions, but the possible roles of tolerance in mutualism (interspecific cooperation) have yet to be thoroughly examined. This review identifies candidate roles for tolerance in the evolution, maintenance and breakdown of mutualism. Firstly, by reducing the cost of damage, tolerance provides a key pathway by which pre-mutualistic hosts can reduce the cost of association with their parasites, promoting cooperation. This holds for the evolution of ‘evolved dependency’ type mutualism, where a host requires an antagonist that does not direct any reward to their partner for some resource, and of ‘outright mutualism’, where participants directly trade benefits. Secondly, in outright mutualism, tolerance might maintain cooperation by reducing the cost of a persisting negative trait in a symbiotic partner. Finally, the evolution of tolerance might also provide a pathway out of mutualism because the host could evolve a cheaper alternative to continued cooperation with its mutualistic partner, permitting autonomy. A key consequence of tolerance is that it contrasts with partner choice mechanisms that impose large costs on cheats, and I highlight understanding any trade-off between tolerance and partner choice as an important research topic in the evolution of cooperation. I conclude by identifying tolerance as part of a more general phenomenon of co-adaptation in mutualism and parasitism that drives the evolution of the cost/benefit ratio from the interaction.     

Importance of indirect nitrous oxide emissions at the field, farm and catchment scale

Direct and indirect nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions and leaching losses from an intensively managed grazed pasture in the Ythan catchment, Aberdeenshire, UK, were measured and compared over a 17-month period. Simultaneous measurements of farm-wide leaching losses of N₂O were also made and catchment-wide fluxes were estimated from existing N leaching data. The relative importance of direct and indirect N₂O fluxes at the field, farm and catchment scale was then assessed. At the field scale we found that direct N₂O emissions were low (1.2 kg N ha⁻¹ year⁻¹, 0.6% of N input) with indirect N₂O emissions via drainage waters comprising a significant proportion (25%) of total N₂O emissions. At the whole-farm scale, the N₂O-N emission factor (0.003) for leached NO₃-N (EF_5-g) was in line with the IPCC's recent downward revision. At the catchment scale, a direct N₂O flux of 1.9 kg N ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ and an indirect flux of 0.06 kg N₂O-N ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ were estimated. This study lends further support to the recent downward revision of the IPCC emission factor for N₂O arising from leached N in surface and ground waters (EF_5-g) and highlights the need for multiple point sampling to ensure that the importance of indirect N₂O losses via drainage waters is not misrepresented at the farm and catchment scales.     

Simple graphical method for inherent occupational health assessment

The concept of inherently safer design was introduced to design a fundamentally safer process so that hazards can be avoided or minimized rather than controlled or managed. The ideology has later been extended to the environmental, but not health criteria due to its complicated underlying principles. Even though health risk methods are already established, majority are for existing plants assessment. Early consideration of health aspect starting from process design stage however, has received much less attention. This paper introduces a simple graphical method to evaluate the inherent occupational health hazards of chemical processes during the R&D stage. A survey was conducted to identify the important health parameters for the graphical method development, involving nine world inherent safety and health experts. Based on their input, process mode, material volatility, operating pressure and chemical health hazard (toxicity and adverse effect) are the significant factors affecting inherent health hazards of chemical processes. The choice of parameters was bounded by the information availability at this stage. The method was applied on six routes to methyl methacrylate and ten routes to acetic acid. The parameters were plotted for each subprocess of the alternative routes. The ‘healthiest’ route was selected based on thorough hazards assessment across all the subprocesses. The first case study reveals the tertiary butyl alcohol as the ‘healthiest’ one as it poses relatively lower, or at least comparable hazards to the other routes due to exposure and health impacts. Meanwhile the acetic acid case study indicates ethanol oxide and ethyl oxide based routes as the inherently healthier as they operate at lower operating pressure besides posing comparable hazards level for the other three parameters, compared to the other routes. The case studies show that the inherent occupational health of a chemical process can already be evaluated easily in the R&D stage with the simple graphical method proposed.     

Social Capital and Sustainability in a Community under Threat

Abstract

Engaging with dialogue concerning the relevance and applicability of social capital to a model of sustainable community development, we illustrate an in-depth case of a community experiencing an ideological clash with the dominant politico-societal structures. We argue that while the exclusivity of bonding social capital has been described as the ‘dark side’, it may be essential for progressive sustainable community development (PSCD). When faced with a development threat, such bonds are essential for building links, bridges and solidarity, enabling cultural reproduction and promoting environmental protection for sustainability.     

The rise of the eco-preneur and the messy world of environmental innovation

Abstract

Media and academic debates about the environment have increasingly made reference to the so-called ‘eco-preneur’ (‘green entrepreneur’ or ‘environmental entrepreneur’). These discussions encourage us to see the potential of such figures to act as drivers of environmental innovation. Their combination of entrepreneurial zeal and green motivations is seen as providing them with the ability to transcend the usual tensions between business and the environment. In academic circles a new literature is beginning to emerge around this perspective, ‘eco-preneurship’. In this paper we investigate the usefulness of eco-preneurship for understanding environmental innovation. In particular we ask where this literature, supported by popular images in the media, fixes our gaze when we think about environmental innovation in society. And, crucially, what might we be missing by concentrating our attention on these eco-preneurs? The paper concludes by suggesting that environmental innovation is better understood as an inherently messy and complex institutional process, which cannot be reduced to the psychology of entrepreneurial personalities.