Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

"As the name would suggest, permafrost in the far north was long considered to be, well, more or less permanent, emphasizing the stability of the Earth system. But more recently, researchers have come to realize that this frozen ground is steadily disappearing, with the full consequences of this situation still being worked out for the global carbon budget. Some have likened permafrost to a bank account that has been growing fatter during our planet’s cold periods; now, however, that account is being withdrawn faster than it is being added to. To make matters worse, the pace of withdrawal is accelerating. To deal with the problem, the first thing that researchers must do is get an idea of the current account." To better understand the state of permafrost today, Bulletin executive editor Dan Drollette Jr interviewed Vladimir Romanovsky of the Permafrost Laboratory at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This March magazine article is available to all readers for a limited time.

"Most geoengineering research today is led by scientists in the U.S. at universities and federal agencies, and the work they are doing is more or less accessible to public scrutiny. Stardust is at the forefront of an alternative path: One in which private companies drive the development, and perhaps deployment, of technologies that experts say could have profound consequences for the planet." "Reach for the Stardust? Former Israel Atomic Energy Commission official leads controversial geoengineering start-up," by Ramin Skibba. This article appears in the Bulletin thanks to our collaboration with Climate Desk.

"If President Donald Trump is serious about engaging in arms control talks with Russia and China, he should first shut down the door of missile proliferation opened by his predecessor," writes Debak Das. "In its final weeks in the White House, the Biden administration announced that it had updated the policy guidance for the implementation by the United States of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), a multilateral export control effort that seeks to limit the proliferation of missiles and missile technology. Per the new guidance, the United States will now allow and facilitate support for transferring the regime’s category I items—including long-range ballistic missile systems, space launch vehicles, and unmanned aerial systems. According to President Biden’s National Security Memorandum on the MTCR, the policy change will enable the United States to transfer entire long-range cruise missiles and ballistic missile systems and their technology to its partners and allies who seek to build their own defense and missile capabilities." Read "Biden opened the door to missile proliferation. Trump should close it," below. ⬇️

Is bitcoin driving a green transformation, or fueling a mirage? "In recent years, a growing chorus of voices has argued that, far from being environmentally harmful, bitcoin mining could serve as a catalyst for the transition to renewable energy." However, "a close look at these bitcoin-is-climate-friendly claims shows they are short-sighted and ill-founded," write Maximilian Gill, Jona Stinner, and Marcel Tyrell.

In 2023, tuberculosis killed 1.25 million people worldwide, supplanting COVID-19 as the planet’s deadliest infectious disease. "A new book by the novelist and TB activist John Green, 'Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection,' highlights the history of TB, and the unique way that the disease reflects the biases of society. Today, when the disease has been effectively cured in rich countries, it is still devastating poor communities around the world. The Trump administration’s funding freeze is the latest example of how humanity is choosing to let tuberculosis spread." Read more from Erik English below.

"Organizations that create and manage large language models must become aware of the risk of LLM grooming and ensure that their current and future generative models do not rely on known foreign disinformation." What can be done? Read more in "Russian networks flood the Internet with propaganda, aiming to corrupt AI chatbots," by Annie Newport and Nina Jankowicz. ⬇️

Yesterday, Maine Senator Angus King grilled US Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, about the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, which made no mention of climate change for the first time in 11 years. In her response, Gabbard implied that climate change was no longer considered a direct threat to US national security. Bulletin climate editor Jessica McKenzie reports below.

‘Notoriously difficult to investigate and even more difficult to predict’: Thomas Stocker on tipping points: https://lnkd.in/d4JejJzq "I think it’s very important to say that what we are doing here is physics. It’s physics of the atmosphere, physics of the ocean, physics of the climate system [...] When I give lectures on climate change, people are really surprised that climate modeling has received a Nobel Prize—not in statistics, that doesn’t exist—but in physics. Many people think these climate models are just statistical machines that make some extrapolation, and there’s really large uncertainties. We hear such statements constantly, fed and fueled by climate skeptics or climate deniers. But look at weather forecasts. Don’t you consult the weather forecast every day? Aren’t these quite reliable? Aren’t we predicting the pathways of hurricanes and warning thousands of people in good time? That’s all physics. And of course, it’s uncertain, but it’s information that is crucial. The same holds true for future climate change, the same holds true for the tipping points. Ultimately, it is physics, and as it is with physics, instabilities are notoriously difficult to investigate and even more difficult to predict." Bulletin editor Jessica McKenzie interviews Thomas Stocker, a professor of Climate and Environmental Physics at the University of Bern and lead author of a 2024 article that argued for the necessity of a robust assessment of tipping points by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to establish consensus on the topic. (Photo: Rajarshi Mitra/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

Ice loss in Greenland is already large, irreversible, and greatly accelerated after centuries of near stability. Though a tipping point for future ice loss has already been crossed, the pace of this loss is not set in stone. What humans do now—especially before the end of this decade—will set that pace, and determine how fast impacts grow, and how much time society has to adapt. "The shrinking of the Greenland Ice Sheet can’t be stopped—but it can and must be slowed," by Twila Moon. This March magazine article is available to all readers for a limited time.

The field of biosecurity encompasses a wide range of threats that require coordinated efforts across disciplines and geographic borders. The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the immense risks posed by biological agents and the urgency of preparing for future biological threats. While there is broad agreement on the need to address these challenges, significant disagreements remain on the best approaches to prevent and mitigate biosecurity risks." Leading field experts were surveyed on the best approach in addressing these risks. A new article by Anemone Franz about a survey of leading biosecurity experts on the best approach in addressing these challenges.