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The moon's still waiting for visitors
EDITORIAL
LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS 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 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 844 543 80 70 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 £143 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 Media Services International Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588
© 2012 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 Polestar (Colchester)
Ends of our own making Considering apocalyptic risks could give us fresh perspective CALL them the modern horsemen Events that would entirely of the apocalypse: nuclear war, eradicate humanity are hard to climate change, doomsday viruses envisage (New Scientist, 3 March, and out-of-control machines. p 36), but the 20th century saw the These are the subjects of the advent of technology that could proposed Centre for the Study seriously threaten human life as of Existential Risk (CSER), which we know it – nuclear weaponry – this week attracted much media and the 21st might well see the attention. “We’re talking about emergence of more. So the end of threats to our very existence the world is now more conceivable stemming from human activity,” says Martin Rees, a cosmologist at “The end of the world is more conceivable than the University of Cambridge who ever, but that doesn’t wants to found the centre with philosopher Huw Price and Skype mean it is imminent” inventor Jaan Tallinn. These new horsemen map than ever – although there’s no quite readily onto the portrayals of particular reason to expect it war, famine, pestilence and death. imminently (garbled Mayan Perhaps that’s because they’re prophecies notwithstanding). only the latest manifestation And Rees is right to say that we of age-old anxieties about the don’t pay enough attention to the fate of the human race. So is the huge, rare risks that might bring CSER just the respectable face of it about. Setting them out and doom-mongering? sizing them up is worthwhile.
But do we need a centre to bring together specialists in such disparate fields? It’s not clear what is to be gained by lumping together, say, nuclear war – whose risks are relatively well understood and contained – and rapacious AI, whose key mitigant may be software design rather than weapons inspections. Why not include genuinely existential natural risks, such as Earthcrossing asteroids? And then there’s the potential for robust climate change analysis to become associated with as yet speculative “Terminator studies”. We won’t know unless we try it. And the effort might bring fresh perspective to a world full of people who still fret that the LHC will spawn a world-destroying black hole – while they stubbornly ignore the clear and present dangers of climate change. ■
Paying for a green future TIMES are tough. When the UK government announced its new energy plans last week, newspaper headlines raged about how much household bills would rise to pay for cleaner power generation. They gave voice to a growing segment of the British public – wearied by the country’s prolonged economic doldrums – that seems disinclined to pay for a greener future.
Ordinary Brits might understandably feel hard done by. Power companies have prospered mightily in recent decades, but the costs of green power will be visited on their customers, not their profits. Other Europeans, too, face a steep bill for climate change relief, but dire financial straits are hampering their efforts (see page 8).
But while money is tight, so is time. The climate talks which kicked off in Doha, Qatar, this week, are unlikely to yield much progress towards a global deal to cut emissions. That will increase the need for meaningful national climate change strategies. While we shouldn’t let governments and energy companies off the hook, they need public support and pressure to act. It’s time we all thought hard about the price we’re willing to pay for the future. n
Been there, done that...
famous 1923 justification for climbing Mount Everest: “Because it’s there”. Now it seems that NASA might return to the moon after all. Following weeks of speculation, a scientist at the European Space Agency, which is partnering with NASA, has told New Scientist that ESA anticipates two new lunar
missions (see page 14). The second of these would see humans orbit the moon, but not attempt to land on its surface. That, it seems, will be left to private firms. Why would they bother? Perhaps to extract resources. Perhaps for the publicity. And perhaps because it’s still there. n
“WE’VE been there before.” It was with those words that President Barack Obama, speaking in 2010, ruled out a return to the moon. Whether deliberately or not, his words echoed George Mallory’s
1 December 2012 | NewScientist | 5
LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS 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 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 844 543 80 70 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 £143 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 Media Services International Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588
© 2012 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 Polestar (Colchester)
Ends of our own making Considering apocalyptic risks could give us fresh perspective CALL them the modern horsemen Events that would entirely of the apocalypse: nuclear war, eradicate humanity are hard to climate change, doomsday viruses envisage (New Scientist, 3 March, and out-of-control machines. p 36), but the 20th century saw the These are the subjects of the advent of technology that could proposed Centre for the Study seriously threaten human life as of Existential Risk (CSER), which we know it – nuclear weaponry – this week attracted much media and the 21st might well see the attention. “We’re talking about emergence of more. So the end of threats to our very existence the world is now more conceivable stemming from human activity,” says Martin Rees, a cosmologist at “The end of the world is more conceivable than the University of Cambridge who ever, but that doesn’t wants to found the centre with philosopher Huw Price and Skype mean it is imminent” inventor Jaan Tallinn. These new horsemen map than ever – although there’s no quite readily onto the portrayals of particular reason to expect it war, famine, pestilence and death. imminently (garbled Mayan Perhaps that’s because they’re prophecies notwithstanding). only the latest manifestation And Rees is right to say that we of age-old anxieties about the don’t pay enough attention to the fate of the human race. So is the huge, rare risks that might bring CSER just the respectable face of it about. Setting them out and doom-mongering? sizing them up is worthwhile.
But do we need a centre to bring together specialists in such disparate fields? It’s not clear what is to be gained by lumping together, say, nuclear war – whose risks are relatively well understood and contained – and rapacious AI, whose key mitigant may be software design rather than weapons inspections. Why not include genuinely existential natural risks, such as Earthcrossing asteroids? And then there’s the potential for robust climate change analysis to become associated with as yet speculative “Terminator studies”. We won’t know unless we try it. And the effort might bring fresh perspective to a world full of people who still fret that the LHC will spawn a world-destroying black hole – while they stubbornly ignore the clear and present dangers of climate change. ■
Paying for a green future TIMES are tough. When the UK government announced its new energy plans last week, newspaper headlines raged about how much household bills would rise to pay for cleaner power generation. They gave voice to a growing segment of the British public – wearied by the country’s prolonged economic doldrums – that seems disinclined to pay for a greener future.
Ordinary Brits might understandably feel hard done by. Power companies have prospered mightily in recent decades, but the costs of green power will be visited on their customers, not their profits. Other Europeans, too, face a steep bill for climate change relief, but dire financial straits are hampering their efforts (see page 8).
But while money is tight, so is time. The climate talks which kicked off in Doha, Qatar, this week, are unlikely to yield much progress towards a global deal to cut emissions. That will increase the need for meaningful national climate change strategies. While we shouldn’t let governments and energy companies off the hook, they need public support and pressure to act. It’s time we all thought hard about the price we’re willing to pay for the future. n
Been there, done that...
famous 1923 justification for climbing Mount Everest: “Because it’s there”. Now it seems that NASA might return to the moon after all. Following weeks of speculation, a scientist at the European Space Agency, which is partnering with NASA, has told New Scientist that ESA anticipates two new lunar
missions (see page 14). The second of these would see humans orbit the moon, but not attempt to land on its surface. That, it seems, will be left to private firms. Why would they bother? Perhaps to extract resources. Perhaps for the publicity. And perhaps because it’s still there. n
“WE’VE been there before.” It was with those words that President Barack Obama, speaking in 2010, ruled out a return to the moon. Whether deliberately or not, his words echoed George Mallory’s
1 December 2012 | NewScientist | 5