Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 8th 2026
Posted: 8th January 2026
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January 8, 2026
An offshore oil rig in Venezuela. (Credit: Repsol/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Why reviving Venezuela’s oil industry will prove to be a tall order for Trump
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” President Donald Trump recently claimed. But is it really that simple? Griststaff writer Jake Bittle weighs in. Read more.
Will the Trump administration attempt to annex Greenland, Canada, or somewhere else? A prominent historian’s take
How seriously should the world take the Trump administration’s threats to annex the land of other countries “one way or another?” Historian and author Daniel Immerwahr says that while a land grab may seem an arbitrary and fanciful notion, it reflects a darker desire. This magazine article is available to all readers for a limited time.
EPA’s December website edits cap off yearlong assault on climate info
Like climate change, the Trump administration’s efforts to remove climate data from government websites feel vast, intangible, and overwhelming, writes director of the National Security Archive’s Climate Change Transparency Project Rachel Santarsiero. Read more.
BULLETIN EMAIL COURSE
Join the Bulletin’s Doomsday Clock email course
Learn more about the powerful symbol of the Doomsday Clock and how it has impacted culture, politics, and global policy. This six-week once a week email series looks through some of our best Doomsday Clock related content. Sign up.
IN THE NEWS
Tick, tick goes the Doomsday Clock
This piece by the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board explores the history of the Clock, how nuclear risk has changed and grown over the years, and a “new, more dangerous phase” the world is entering. Read more.
IN THE NEWS
Kathryn Bigelow, catastrophe connoisseur
In this The New Yorker article, Robert Sullivan shares an insider look at a conversation between the Bulletin’s President and CEO Alexandra Bell and A House of Dynamite director Kathryn Bigelow. Read more.
BULLETIN EVENT
Art + Science: Harnessing the Power of Art and Storytelling
How do we harness the power of art in drawing attention to the most pressing global threats? How do we support artists in the most trying of times to tell the stories that bring us all together?
To explore these questions, join us for a virtual event featuring David Harrington, founder of the Kronos Quartet, whose music has long confronted the urgencies of social change; science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson, whose work imagines social transformation through engaging, creative prose; Lovely Umayam, a nuclear policy expert rooted in activism and art; and Alexandra Bell, who is bringing the Bulletin’s long-standing devotion of arts-driven global engagement into a new era.
Tune in on January 15 at 11:15 a.m. CT / 12:15 p.m. ET. Register here.
A cartoon by Fitzpatrick and St. Louis Post Dispatch from 1954.