Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, December 9, 2024
Posted: 10th December 2024
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Migrant workers weed a field of peppers on Rick and Robyn Purdum’s farm. Fruitland, Idaho. (Photo: Kirsten Strough/USDA)
DUSTIN MULVANEY
The future of extraction, energy dominance, and federal lands under Trump
Presidential elections have consequences, and sometimes they can be monumental for US federal lands and waters. Trump’s second term promises to pit industry interests against conservation, environmental laws, and species protections. Read more.
GEORGINA GUSTIN
US farms are being battered by climate change. Trump wants to put a climate denier in charge of the USDA
Where Brooke Rollins stands on agricultural policy is unclear, but her positions on climate change are. A lawyer, Rollins has an agricultural development degree but has little to no professional experience with agricultural policy. She has called for the US to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and applauded attempts to repeal the Clean Power Plan. Read more.
JONATHAN WATTS
Report: Widespread land degradation impacting an area greater than Antarctica threatens global climate
Land degradation is expanding worldwide at the rate of one million square kilometers every year, undermining efforts to stabilize the climate, protect nature, and ensure sustainable food supplies, a study has highlighted. Read more.
BULLETIN
Bulletin board member appointed to National Academies of Sciences committee
Dr. Asha M. George, member of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, has been appointed as a member of the National Academies’ Committee on Planetary Protection. Read more.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Black swans from Mars?
In 1679, Dutch explorers reached Australia and observed the first black swan known to Western civilization. This discovery became something of a scientific phenomenon, going against a deeply held belief that what usually happens (for Westerners, seeing white swans) is a guide to what will happen.
Now, NASA and the European Space Agency are planning to retrieve rocks and dust from Mars for study on Earth. The agencies don’t think the samples will contain anything that’s alive, but nobody can put the risks at zero. Read more.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We are at the dawn of a third nuclear age [...] It is defined by multiple and concurrent dilemmas, proliferating nuclear and disruptive technologies and the almost total absence of the security architectures that went before.”
— Adm. Tony Radakin, UK Chief of the Defense Staff, “Senior UK military commander warns of a ‘third nuclear age’,’” AP
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