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Fires ravage California
Andrew Seng/REX Shutterstock
Upfront
Fires ravage California CALIFORNIA is burning. One of the worst wildfire seasons in the state’s history has killed six people and destroyed over a thousand homes, California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said on Monday. Hundreds of thousands of hectares across the western US – from Alaska to California – are alight with multiple wildfires. But only California, the most populous state in the country, has seen deaths and widespread property damage. The fires are stoked by drought, in California’s case the worst its history. Earlier this year, officials went to measure the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, which provides much of the state’s water. Instead of the traditional 1.5 metres of snow, they found just dry earth. This
year’s snowpack is at a 500-year low, thanks to unusually warm winter weather and poor snows – conditions that are expected to become more common as climate change hits. Climate change is widely acknowledged as being behind the severity of the drought. Warmer temperatures mean precipitation is more likely to fall as rain rather than snow. Rain runs off the mountains fast rather than piling up into a natural water reserve as snow does. Uneven heating of the planet also moves precipitation zones – in California’s case, shifting the tracks of winter storms that roll in off the Pacific Ocean. This year’s El Niño is expected to bring rains to California, but it is unlikely to be enough to end the drought.
–One of many–
United on poverty
“We have been talking about integration for two decades and here we have a set of goals that address it,” says Gisbert Glaser of the International Council for Science. He says the goals represent major progress on the Millennium Development Goals, established in 2000, which ignored wider environmental issues. But for the goals to be reached, we will need financing for development to increase from “billions to trillions”, says David Griggs of the Monash Sustainability Institute, Australia.
IT MIGHT be too soon to say goodbye to poverty, but world governments are about to set a common agenda to do so – all while trying to save the planet. At a UN summit in New York this week some 150 heads of state
are set to endorse 17 sustainable development goals, such as to eradicate poverty by 2030 and to make cities sustainable. Some say there are too many goals to be successful, and some of them lack rigour. Nevertheless, many scientists are cautiously rejoicing, because for the first time the targets include rescuing Earth’s critical life support systems. Taken together, they say, the goals acknowledge the interconnectedness of things – that you can’t have health and prosperity without taking the fragility of Earth’s systems into account. 6 | NewScientist | 26 September 2015
ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
“The development goals aim to eradicate poverty by 2030 and ensure a sustainable planet”
How to be happy ARE you satisfied with life? The World Health Organization wants to know, and its first guinea pigs are the people in 53 European countries. The WHO decided three years ago to try to include measures of well-being in its health assessments. It came up with five key measures. Four are objective, evaluating social connectedness, economic security, people’s natural and built environments, and their education. The fifth – life satisfaction – is subjective.
In its European Health Report 2015, the WHO considers how to standardise measures of wellbeing across cultures that might have contrasting views on the value of material success or equality, for instance. “All we’ve ever reported on has been death, disease and disability,” says Claudia Stein of the WHO. “Health is not just the absence of disease.” The WHO is not abandoning traditional indicators of health. But by looking at how culture impacts health, it may be possible to make further improvements.
Icy forecast #rosettawatch
EVEN comets have weather. The Rosetta space probe has spotted a square-kilometre field of solid ice in the neck region of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The comet’s day-night cycle drives its small weather system using the ice field, sublimating the ice into vapour when the sun rises. The ice was spotted in data gathered last August using –Got it in the neck– Rosetta’s VIRTIS instrument –
Upfront
Fires ravage California CALIFORNIA is burning. One of the worst wildfire seasons in the state’s history has killed six people and destroyed over a thousand homes, California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said on Monday. Hundreds of thousands of hectares across the western US – from Alaska to California – are alight with multiple wildfires. But only California, the most populous state in the country, has seen deaths and widespread property damage. The fires are stoked by drought, in California’s case the worst its history. Earlier this year, officials went to measure the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, which provides much of the state’s water. Instead of the traditional 1.5 metres of snow, they found just dry earth. This
year’s snowpack is at a 500-year low, thanks to unusually warm winter weather and poor snows – conditions that are expected to become more common as climate change hits. Climate change is widely acknowledged as being behind the severity of the drought. Warmer temperatures mean precipitation is more likely to fall as rain rather than snow. Rain runs off the mountains fast rather than piling up into a natural water reserve as snow does. Uneven heating of the planet also moves precipitation zones – in California’s case, shifting the tracks of winter storms that roll in off the Pacific Ocean. This year’s El Niño is expected to bring rains to California, but it is unlikely to be enough to end the drought.
–One of many–
United on poverty
“We have been talking about integration for two decades and here we have a set of goals that address it,” says Gisbert Glaser of the International Council for Science. He says the goals represent major progress on the Millennium Development Goals, established in 2000, which ignored wider environmental issues. But for the goals to be reached, we will need financing for development to increase from “billions to trillions”, says David Griggs of the Monash Sustainability Institute, Australia.
IT MIGHT be too soon to say goodbye to poverty, but world governments are about to set a common agenda to do so – all while trying to save the planet. At a UN summit in New York this week some 150 heads of state
are set to endorse 17 sustainable development goals, such as to eradicate poverty by 2030 and to make cities sustainable. Some say there are too many goals to be successful, and some of them lack rigour. Nevertheless, many scientists are cautiously rejoicing, because for the first time the targets include rescuing Earth’s critical life support systems. Taken together, they say, the goals acknowledge the interconnectedness of things – that you can’t have health and prosperity without taking the fragility of Earth’s systems into account. 6 | NewScientist | 26 September 2015
ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
“The development goals aim to eradicate poverty by 2030 and ensure a sustainable planet”
How to be happy ARE you satisfied with life? The World Health Organization wants to know, and its first guinea pigs are the people in 53 European countries. The WHO decided three years ago to try to include measures of well-being in its health assessments. It came up with five key measures. Four are objective, evaluating social connectedness, economic security, people’s natural and built environments, and their education. The fifth – life satisfaction – is subjective.
In its European Health Report 2015, the WHO considers how to standardise measures of wellbeing across cultures that might have contrasting views on the value of material success or equality, for instance. “All we’ve ever reported on has been death, disease and disability,” says Claudia Stein of the WHO. “Health is not just the absence of disease.” The WHO is not abandoning traditional indicators of health. But by looking at how culture impacts health, it may be possible to make further improvements.
Icy forecast #rosettawatch
EVEN comets have weather. The Rosetta space probe has spotted a square-kilometre field of solid ice in the neck region of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The comet’s day-night cycle drives its small weather system using the ice field, sublimating the ice into vapour when the sun rises. The ice was spotted in data gathered last August using –Got it in the neck– Rosetta’s VIRTIS instrument –