Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 13th, 2025

Posted: 14th November 2025

November 13, 2025

A group of anti-nuclear test demonstrators, part of a larger group some 1,500 strong, display their message in the streets of New York City on October 28, 1961. In this year alone, the United States conducted 10 underground nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site and the Soviet Union conducted 59 tests—nearly one per day in the span of three months—after it ended its voluntary testing moratorium in September 1961. (Credit: Getty Images / Bettman)

How the United States achieved its de facto nuclear test ban—and how to preserve it

Citizen activism and legislative pressures helped stop US nuclear weapon testing. They will be needed again to protect the moratorium against Trump’s call for renewed testing, writes David Cortright. Read more.

The comforting but dangerous fantasy of ‘normal’ climatic and political aberrations

From the “Ice Age waltz” to the “fast greenhouse tango,” Earth’s ever-fluctuating climate “now follows our lead,” write Benjamin Santer and David W.J. Thompson. Read more.

BULLETIN VIDEO

What you should know about nuclear weapons

Jeffrey Lewis explains why it is so difficult to convey the size and destructive force of nuclear weapons, and always has been—and gives a breakdown of how to understand the scale of a nuclear attack with Chicago as an example. Watch here.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Every tenth of a degree matters. We are seriously seeing that we are heading at high speed towards a dead end. Scientists continue publishing papers but we are getting nervous. We are seeing really worrying signs.”

—Thelma Krug, coordinator of the Science Council for Belém Cop30, “Removing CO2 from atmosphere vital to avoid catastrophic tipping points, leading scientist says,” The Guardian

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