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Long live net neutrality
Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post/getty
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Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 330 333 9740 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588 [email protected]
© 2015 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Williams Gibbons (Wolverhampton)
Long live net neutrality There’s more at stake than the right to make money FROM its basement beginnings, the internet has spread across the globe. It lets us connect more efficiently than any technology before it, and has become a crucial ingredient of modern life. One of the keys to its success is “net neutrality” – a jargony way of saying that all internet traffic must be treated equally. Neutrality has been a guiding principle of the net since its birth, but next month the US Federal Communications Commission will vote on its future in the US. Internet providers largely want to see it end, allowing them to give preferential treatment to traffic from certain websites, or slow down traffic from competitors. President Obama has advised
the FCC to preserve neutrality, and the smart money is on the status quo. But the fact that the vote is happening demonstrates that net neutrality is a public good that needs constant and vigilant defence against private interests. Various projects announced last week have the potential to secure net neutrality for years to come. Google, SpaceX and others are racing to provide global, neutral, internet access from space (see page 18). Their projects are welcome not only because they provide alternatives to the existing telecom providers, but because they move the world closer to universal access. In 1948, the UN published its Universal Declaration of Human
Cranking up the heat LAST year was the warmest on record, even though El Niño failed to show up. Most of the previous hottest years, such as 1998, have come with the warmer sea surfaces that El Niño brings. If there ever was a warming hiatus, it is over. The long-term trend continues. The world is warming by 0.16 °C per decade. The effects are evident: record heatwaves, as in Australia, and
record floods – and snow – in many places, with Mozambique and the US the latest to feel the effects. Sea level is rising ever faster. Sea ice in the Arctic is vanishing. But there’s a blip in the big picture. The winter sea ice around Antarctica has grown slightly over the past few decades. It is not clear why (see page 40). The seas around Antarctica are hard to study, and computer
Rights in response to the atrocities of the second world war, many of which were revealed to the world 70 years ago this week. Among the rights it enshrined were freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of peaceful assembly and the right to education and cultural life. The internet is the most powerful force ever invented to spread those rights. Those who regard net neutrality as a nuisance should bear this in mind. The newcomers must also avoid the temptation of letting commercial goals override their early idealism. Net neutrality is becoming a human rights issue in its own right. Like the others, it is worth fighting for. n
models are missing some key details. Nonetheless, it is a bit of an embarrassment that climate scientists aren’t sure exactly what’s going on. However, it would be wrong to take comfort from this blip – or exploit it to claim that scientists can’t get their story straight. In just about every other way, the climate is changing as expected, or worse. This is not a new message, but with crunch UN climate talks coming at the end of the year, it bears repeating. n 31 January 2015 | NewScientist | 5
LEADERS
LOCATIONS UK 110 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6EU Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217
Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 330 333 9740 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588 [email protected]
© 2015 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Williams Gibbons (Wolverhampton)
Long live net neutrality There’s more at stake than the right to make money FROM its basement beginnings, the internet has spread across the globe. It lets us connect more efficiently than any technology before it, and has become a crucial ingredient of modern life. One of the keys to its success is “net neutrality” – a jargony way of saying that all internet traffic must be treated equally. Neutrality has been a guiding principle of the net since its birth, but next month the US Federal Communications Commission will vote on its future in the US. Internet providers largely want to see it end, allowing them to give preferential treatment to traffic from certain websites, or slow down traffic from competitors. President Obama has advised
the FCC to preserve neutrality, and the smart money is on the status quo. But the fact that the vote is happening demonstrates that net neutrality is a public good that needs constant and vigilant defence against private interests. Various projects announced last week have the potential to secure net neutrality for years to come. Google, SpaceX and others are racing to provide global, neutral, internet access from space (see page 18). Their projects are welcome not only because they provide alternatives to the existing telecom providers, but because they move the world closer to universal access. In 1948, the UN published its Universal Declaration of Human
Cranking up the heat LAST year was the warmest on record, even though El Niño failed to show up. Most of the previous hottest years, such as 1998, have come with the warmer sea surfaces that El Niño brings. If there ever was a warming hiatus, it is over. The long-term trend continues. The world is warming by 0.16 °C per decade. The effects are evident: record heatwaves, as in Australia, and
record floods – and snow – in many places, with Mozambique and the US the latest to feel the effects. Sea level is rising ever faster. Sea ice in the Arctic is vanishing. But there’s a blip in the big picture. The winter sea ice around Antarctica has grown slightly over the past few decades. It is not clear why (see page 40). The seas around Antarctica are hard to study, and computer
Rights in response to the atrocities of the second world war, many of which were revealed to the world 70 years ago this week. Among the rights it enshrined were freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of peaceful assembly and the right to education and cultural life. The internet is the most powerful force ever invented to spread those rights. Those who regard net neutrality as a nuisance should bear this in mind. The newcomers must also avoid the temptation of letting commercial goals override their early idealism. Net neutrality is becoming a human rights issue in its own right. Like the others, it is worth fighting for. n
models are missing some key details. Nonetheless, it is a bit of an embarrassment that climate scientists aren’t sure exactly what’s going on. However, it would be wrong to take comfort from this blip – or exploit it to claim that scientists can’t get their story straight. In just about every other way, the climate is changing as expected, or worse. This is not a new message, but with crunch UN climate talks coming at the end of the year, it bears repeating. n 31 January 2015 | NewScientist | 5