The EcoMobileum: Experiencing the World of Environmentally Friendly Urban Mobility

With its sights set on sustainable development, transport policy finds itself confronted with the challenge of convincing people to abandon the current path of growth and instead use small, slower vehicles with a reduced range in the future. The problem with this goal is that people's mental structures are shaped by the car ensconced in their heads. Thinking in other terms hardly seems possible; moreover, many of the products classified as vehicles, but smaller in scale than the "car" and that already exist, remain unknown, nor can they be tried out - they are quite literally nowhere to be seen. In light of this situation, the German Federal Environmental Foundation has commissioned a feasibility study to explore the establishment of a World of Experience (Erlebniswelt) of sustainable urban mobility - the EcoMobileum®. Here, the aim is to open up the horizons of a new culture of mobility in order to get people excited about the transformation of mobility.

The EcoMobileum Experiencing the World of Environmentally Friendly Urban Mobility

With its sights set on sustainable development, transport policy finds itself confronted with the challenge of convincing people to abandon the current path of growth and instead use small, slower vehicles with a reduced range in the future. The problem with this goal is that people's mental structures are shaped by the car ensconced in their heads. Thinking in other terms hardly seems possible; moreover, many of the products classified as vehicles, but smaller in scale than the "car" and that already exist, remain unknown, nor can they be tried out - they are quite literally nowhere to be seen. In light of this situation, the German Federal Environmental Foundation has commissioned a feasibility study to explore the establishment of a World of Experience (Erlebniswelt) of sustainable urban mobility - the EcoMobileum®. Here, the aim is to open up the horizons of a new culture of mobility in order to get people excited about the transformation of mobility.

Compensatory Application Provisions of Plant Protection Products to Protect Biodiversity

For the protection of biodiversity, the German Federal Environmental Agency (UBA) pursues the goal of establishing compensation areas to balance unavoidable indirect effects on nature and the environment caused by the application of plant protection products. Whether there is a legal basis for this within either European Union or national law is one of the most debated and pressing issues currently in the authorisation procedure for plant protection products in Germany. The purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive legal assessment of whether it is legally permissible to make plant protection product authorisations contingent to compensatory application provisions to protect biodiversity.

Risk management under REACH Requirements of technical and organisational guidance for producers, importers and downstream users

The success of REACh will depend on whether or not the actors are willing and able to adopt the roles allocated to them under the new regime. Yet it would be naive to assume that the simple fact of enacting the Regulation will be sufficient to effect the necessary changes in the behaviour of the responsible parties. Within this context, a study on behalf of the German Federal Environmental Agency (Umweltbundesamt – UBA) was performed. The study’s initial hypothesis was that support - in the form of (technical and organisational) guidance specific to each type of economic actor - can help to push forward the necessary innovation and co-operation processes to implement REACh in the intended way. Thus, transaction costs for each actor can be kept to a minimum and obstacles overcome. This also supports the central, structural objective of REACh to establish a “learning system”, particularly with regard to the interaction occurring between the producers and users of industrial chemicals. To this end, sufficient regulatory (dis)incentives are essential. For this reason, the question of possible amendments to the current draft of the Regulation was also addressed.

Government view of endocrine disruption in wildlife

Like hardly any other issue in ecotoxicology, endocrine disruption has given rise to public concern. Reproductive, behavioral, and immunological effects in wildlife were publicly not only understood as possible threats to wildlife populations, but also as early warning signals that human health could be at risk. Above all, the public has been concerned about negative outcomes in reproductive health, and effects like feminization in fish were regarded as evidence for the biological plausibility of the hypothesis that environmental levels of hormonally active chemicals are high enough to affect human reproductive health. Public concern has been mirrored by several parliamentary and governmental decisions emphasizing the need for extensive research and rapid measures to reduce the risk associated with endocrine-disrupting substances. Endocrine disruption in wildlife is clearly a priority issue. At least in densely populated areas like Europe, symptoms of endocrine disruption in wildlife cannot only be detected in areas with abnormally high levels of pollution, but have also occurred in main river systems, estuaries, and even in the open sea. Imposex in mollusks and feminization in fish that were clearly related to disturbances in the hormonal system of these organisms by exogenous substances have been used as markers in monitoring programs. Though symptoms of endocrine disruption can be clearly identified, it is much more difficult to link these outcomes to causative chemicals or mixtures of substances. Natural and pharmaceutical hormones, phytoestrogens, pesticides, and industrial chemicals may all play a role to a different degree depending on the site under study. This means that several different risk-reduction strategies have to be applied, including bans of substances, use restrictions, and installation and optimization of sewage treatment works embedded in a strategy for the overall reduction of chemical input into the environment. It should be noted that, in addition to national and international regulatory actions taken by state authorities, a considerable reduction of the environmental input could be achieved in several countries by voluntary actions taken by industry. Regulatory bodies are still facing major problems in the field of risk assessment and risk reduction. Association between effects and causative agents or mixtures are in many cases weak. Important tools for risk assessment such as dose-response relationships or the existence of thresholds are not yet agreed on. These uncertainties are the reason that many national governments and the European Commission have identified precaution as the main element in chemicals policy for the management of endocrine disruptors. This paper is based on documents of the German Federal Environmental Agency, but solely represents the view of the author from a regulatory perspective and emphasizes the wildlife aspects of endocrine disruption.

A COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION SYSTEM ON CRUDE OILS

ABSTRACT In cooperation with the German Federal Environmental Agency, a one-year investigation was made by the Institute for Water Research in Dortmund to collect physical and ecological information on 200 crude oil species. Data of primary interest were the composition of crude oils, the boiling points of their refinery fractions, their pour points, densities, viscosities, surface tensions, and flammabilities, and the dependence of these parameters on temperature and weathering. Biodegradability data and specification of cleanup methods for the different types of crude oils give efficient support to oil spill emergency authorities. For fast and easy retrieval, data are stored in an IBM 4341/3031 computer as a substructure of the already operational “Databank on Harmful Substances,” which is an information system on physical, chemical, and ecological properties of 20,000 chemicals, developed in cooperation with the German Federal Environmental Agency.