Planetary Stewardship in an Urbanizing World: Beyond City Limits

Cities are rapidly increasing in importance as a major factor shaping the Earth system, and therefore, must take corresponding responsibility. With currently over half the world’s population, cities are supported by resources originating from primarily rural regions often located around the world far distant from the urban loci of use. The sustainability of a city can no longer be considered in isolation from the sustainability of human and natural resources it uses from proximal or distant regions, or the combined resource use and impacts of cities globally. The world’s multiple and complex environmental and social challenges require interconnected solutions and coordinated governance approaches to planetary stewardship. We suggest that a key component of planetary stewardship is a global system of cities that develop sustainable processes and policies in concert with its non-urban areas. The potential for cities to cooperate as a system and with rural connectivity could increase their capacity to effect change and foster stewardship at the planetary scale and also increase their resource security.     

Biotic homogenization and differentiation of plant communities in tropical and subtropical forests

Anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity can lead to biotic homogenization (BH) and biotic differentiation (BD). BH is a process of increasing similarity in community composition (including taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic components), whereas BD is a process of decreasing similarity over space and time. Here, we conducted a systematic review of BH and BD in plant communities in tropical and subtropical forests to identify trends and knowledge gaps. Our bibliometric search in the Web of Science returned 1989 papers, of which 151 matched our criteria and were included in the analysis. The Neotropical region had the largest number of articles, and Brazil was the most represented country with 92 studies. Regarding the type of change, homogenization was more frequent than differentiation (noted in 69.6% of publications). The taxonomic diversity component was measured more often than functional and phylogenetic diversity components. Most studies (75.6%) assessed homogenization and differentiation based on a single observation in time; as opposed to few studies that monitored plant community over multiple years. Forest fragmentation was cited as the main determinant of homogenization and differentiation processes (57.2% of articles). Our results highlight the importance of evaluating community composition over time and more than taxonomic components (i.e., functional and phylogenetic) to advance understanding of homogenization and differentiation. Both processes were scale dependent and not mutually exclusive. As such, future research should consider differentiation as a potential transition phase to homogenization and that potential differences in both processes may depend on the spatial and temporal scale adopted. Understanding the complexity and causes of homogenization and differentiation is essential for biodiversity conservation in a world increasingly affected by anthropogenic disturbances.     

Making pollution prevention part of the coors culture

This article is about Total Quality Management and its relationship to corporate environmental affairs. As the TQM movement expands, the commitment to continuous quality improvement, customer satisfaction, and collaborative, team-oriented workplaces is finding new applications. Just as the success of Federal Express, AT&T, and other winners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award shows that Total Quality Management can transform a business, we also are learning of successes companies are having applying TQM principles to environmental management. Our experience with TQM and environmental management at Coors Brewing Company is in the area of pollution prevention. In addition to our brewing operations, we also operate the country's largest aluminum can manufacturing plant, where we produce 4 billion cans a year, a separate facility that makes the can tops, a glass bottle manufacturing plant, and various support facilities. In all, we have some 7,000 employees, and building a commitment to pollution prevention in an operation of that size requires much more than just adopting quality principles. In this article we show how it also means understanding how those principles will mesh with the corporate culture. What we found is that before TQM can begin its magic, a company must review its own culture to see how problems have traditionally been solved and how challenges have been met.     

Employee reactivity and adaptation to observation on the job

In the course of studying police dispatchers, five observers recorded the reactions of the employees (N = 37) to their presence throughout the work shift on three separate occasions. Four major research questions were considered: (a) extent of reaction, (b) relationship between interactions with the observer and changes in employees' work activities, (c) independence of verbal and nonverbal behavioral reactions, and (d) adaptation. On average, subjects or other employees initiated 10 interactions per hour with observers. These interactions were classified as subject-initiated (a) verbal, content related to research procedures; (b) verbal, non-research-related in content; (c) nonverbal only or (d) other employee-initiated verbal comment. Interaction with the observer was not related to the amount of work the subject did. Subjects' nonverbal and verbal responses were unrelated to each other as well as to the verbal responses of other employees. A priori expectations concerning adaptation to observation were tested with a 3 × 3 (segment by day) repeated-measures factorial design. Significant adaptation (P < 0·01) occurred within and between days in subjects' comments about research procedures and all comments from other employees. However, other behaviors showed with no evidence of adaptation or actual increases. The implications of these findings for measuring reactivity and deciding when adaptation has occurred are discussed.     

Securing water for people, crops, and ecosystems: New mindset and new priorities

A fundamentally new approach to water and human development will be needed during this new century if we are to secure sufficient freshwater to meet the needs of some 9 billion people while at the same time protecting the critical ecosystem services upon which the human economy depends. Signs of unsustainable water use — including falling water tables, shrinking lakes, and the drying up of rivers and streams — are widespread and spreading. In many regions, greater modification and appropriation of freshwater systems for human purposes will yield greater costs than benefits and create the risk of irreversible losses of species and ecosystem services. A new mindset is needed to guide water use and management in this new century, one that views the human water economy as a subset of nature's water economy. Living within nature's limits will require that societies satisfy the basic needs of people and ecosystems before non-essential water demands are met. It will require on the order of a doubling of water productivity. And it will require stronger institutions to encourage equitable sharing of water to alleviate tensions within and between countries.     

Soil microbial and faunal community responses to bt maize and insecticide in two soils

The effects of maize (Zea mays L.), genetically modified to express the Cry1Ab protein (Bt), and an insecticide on soil microbial and faunal communities were assessed in a glasshouse experiment. Soil for the experiment was taken from field sites where the same maize cultivars were grown to allow comparison between results under glasshouse conditions with those from field trials. Plants were grown in contrasting sandy loam and clay loam soils, half were sprayed with a pyrethroid insecticide (deltamethrin) and soil samples taken at the five-leaf stage, flowering, and maturity. The main effect on all measured parameters was that of soil type and there were no effects of Bt trait or insecticide on plant growth. The Bt trait resulted in more soil nematodes and protozoa (amoebae), whereas insecticide application increased plant Bt concentration and altered nematode community structure. The only significant effects on soil microbial community structure, microarthropods, and larvae of a nontarget root-feeding Dipteran, were due to soil type and plant growth stage. The results indicate that, although there were statistically significant effects of the Bt trait on soil populations, they were small. The relative magnitude of the effect could best be judged by comparison with the insecticide treatment, which was representative of current best practice. The Bt trait had no greater effect than the insecticide treatment. Results from this glasshouse experiment were in broad agreement with conclusions from field experiments using the same plant material grown in the same soils.     

Degradability Characterization of EPDM/IIR Blends by γ-irradiation

In this paper the modifications induced in butyl rubbers (pristine, chlorinated and brominated sorts) by γ-irradiation are investigated by swelling, chemiluminescence and FT-IR. The susceptibility of butyl rubbers for the generation of radicals orders their stabilities in the following sequence: IIR?>?IIR—Cl?>?IIR—Br. The incorporation of butyl rubbers into ethylene-propylene terpolymer matrix brings about increased densities of radicals initiating modifications in the oxidation state in respect with recombination, which are intensified as the processing dose increases. Based on the variation of carbonyl and hydroxyl indices the favorable route for the recycling EPDM based formulations would be suggested in this study. The chemiluminescence spectra proving the formation of peroxyl radicals at about 100?°C prove their availability as reclaiming solutions. IIR—Br is the recommendable butyl rubber for the recovery procedure by association with EPDM. The suitability of IIRs for recycling purposes is analyzed by the variation in their crosslink densities, free volumes and swelling degrees. The crosslinking behavior of stabilized EPDM/IIR blends that runs to the improvement of durability is depicted by Charlesby–Pinner representation, which involves the different simultaneous contribution of scission and crosslinking processes.