Last week saw the conclusion of the XL Annual Meeting of the Spanish Society of Epidemiology under the theme: "Challenges of the 21st Century: Environment, Climate Change and Social Inequalities". Climate change is the most important environmental challenge with an impact on public health facing society today. It is also a social challenge, as it further accentuates inequalities and inequities in health.

The so-called Oceans Treaty, promoted by the UN, has had to be stopped, not concluded, due to the impossibility of reaching an agreement. After a process of more than 16 years, only half a session separates us from the word failure. Let us hope that the resumption of the last session, possibly in the spring of 2023, will offer us the agreement we all wish for.

In the coming days, our children and young people will return to their schools. In addition to their education, schools offer the possibility to improve and maintain their health also through healthy and sustainable nutrition. This is one of the current challenges in Europe; a much more complex challenge than it may seem.  

A return to coal in Spain is not feasible in the short term, as many of the old thermal power plants have been dismantled. In the long term, the future of electricity production lies in renewable technologies, not only because of their environmental implications, but also because of energy independence with respect to third countries. In the short term, it is essential to continue using conventional technologies.

It is one year since the last episode of dead fish in the Mar Menor and six years since its collapse in 2016.  In the European project COASTAL we propose 14 solutions for the sustainable development of the Mar Menor and Campo de Cartagena in collaboration with representatives of the agriculture, tourism, fishing, salt marshes, public administrations, NGOs and research sectors.

The report Women Researchers 2022 highlights the fact that the presence of women in decision-making positions and in scientific and innovative leadership at the CSIC has increased. Among the shadows, the persistent under-representation of women researchers and the difficulty in achieving a gender balance in all scientific ranks, especially in research professorships.

The lack of rainfall and the decrease in available water resources have caused 47% of European territory to be on drought pre-alert and 17% to be on alert. The lesser experience of northern countries in managing this phenomenon and the high vulnerability of southern regions mean that this drought is having a major impact on various economic sectors, in addition to supply cuts.

After the scientific success and popularity of the Hubble and James Webb space megatelescopes, there are other smaller telescopes with important missions. This is the case of the European Space Agency's PLATO, whose telescopes will have the challenge of searching for exoplanets by monitoring hundreds of thousands of stars.

How to tackle the remaining forest fires? The author proposes that long-term policy measures are needed that go beyond reactive firefighting, which can aggravate the problem.

A recently published study analyses 185 cases of monkeypox reported in Spain up to 11 July and profiles the cases detected in Spain, as well as the most common dermatological symptoms.