1
4 | NewScientist | 26 November 2011 SEA-LEVEL rise is bad news for many island nations, but it may not be severe enough to prevent Chagos islanders from returning home four decades after they were expelled by UK authorities. In the late 1960s, the 1000 or so inhabitants of the Chagos islands – a British overseas territory – were forced out to make way for American military. The UK has resisted all demands made in its courts by the Chagossians to be allowed to return to the outer islands of the archipelago. Central to the British refusal has been the claim that the coral islands would be uninhabitable within decades because of rising sea levels due to climate change. A management plan for the islands, written in 2003 by biologist Charles Sheppard at the University of Warwick, UK, said annual sea-level rise since a Drowning islands? tide gauge was installed in 1988 had averaged 5.4 millimetres a year – twice the global average. He added that the figure was accelerating, and earlier this year at an event at the Royal Geographical Society in London, he revised the annual figure to 12.0 millimetres. Philip Woodworth, a researcher at the UK’s National Oceanography Centre in Liverpool, says these figures are “definitely wrong”. He agrees that high year-on-year variability, created by ocean- current fluctuations, means there are legitimate arguments about the precise underlying rise. But his best estimate, based on an analysis of the same data and to be published in Global and Planetary Change, is that sea level has been rising by just 2.2 millimetres a year since 1988. Whatever the true measure, it should “certainly not be used for extrapolation” of future sea levels, says Woodworth. Sheppard dismisses the new findings, but the issue will no doubt come up again when the two researchers attend future meetings to discuss the islands. HIV infections fall GREAT news just in time for World AIDS day on 1 December: new infections of HIV have fallen dramatically thanks to surging availability of antiretroviral drugs (ARTs), which reduce the chances of people passing on the virus. A report published this week by UNAIDS, which coordinates the fight against HIV and AIDS, shows that new HIV infections and AIDS- related deaths have both fallen by a fifth since their peaks in 1997 and 2005 respectively. “We have seen a massive scale up in access to HIV treatment, which has had a dramatic effect on lives,” says Michel Sidibé, executive director of UNAIDS. ARTs now reach almost half the 14.2 million people eligible for treatment in poor countries, with the aim of reaching them all by 2015. In sub-Saharan Africa, new infections have fallen by 26 per cent since 1997, and in South Africa and the Caribbean they have fallen by a third. Globally, ARTs have reached an additional 1.35 million people since 2009. –Giver of life– Summit in the Himalayas NATIONS are doing it for themselves. In the absence of a global agreement, four of the seven countries bordering the Himalayas have agreed to work together to deal with the harmful effects that climate change is expected to bring to the region. India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan met at the Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas in Thimphu, Bhutan, last weekend. There, they agreed to work together on issues including food and water security. All four countries rely on meltwater from Himalayan glaciers. Recent temperature, rainfall and snow projections suggest flow into the Indus river – which supports the world’s largest irrigation system – will fall by 8 per cent by 2050. Other rivers in the region will see even greater declines, leaving millions vulnerable to drought (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1183188). Upstream dams built with regional cooperation could help control the flow – and generate electricity into the bargain, says Saleemul Huq of the International Institute for Environment and Development in London. “It’s a significant step forward for the region.” Historically Himalayan countries have rarely worked together, but regional cooperation could be the best way to tackle climate change – especially as the upcoming UN climate change talks in Durban, South Africa, is not expected to produce a global treaty. To have a lasting impact, though, the group will need to include China, Pakistan and Afghanistan. “The UK has resisted all demands made by the Chagossians to return to the islands they call home” SCIENCE could pay the price of US lawmakers’ indecision. A congressional “supercommittee” has failed to agree on a plan to rein in the US federal budget deficit, triggering $1.2 trillion in budget cuts over a decade beginning in 2013. It is not yet clear how the axe will fall, but the required cuts are so large that major science projects and facilities could be at risk. “It’s going to be real bloodletting,” says Michael Lubell, head of public affairs at Trying times ahead for US science STEVE ESTVANIK/CORBIS the American Physical Society. “Everything is up for grabs.” Vulnerable projects include the Advanced Light Source in California, used to study molecules and materials, and the National Ecological Observatory Network, field sites that will monitor the impacts of climate change. NASA’s over-budget James Webb Space Telescope (right), which last week fought off an attempt to zero out its funding in 2012, may face renewed pressure. UPFRONT
