Citing a more "hopeful state of world affairs" in relation to the twin threats posed by nuclear weapons and climate change, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is moving the minute hand of its famous Doomsday Clock one minute away from midnight. It is now 6 minutes to midnight. The decision by the BAS Science and Security Board was made in consultation with the Bulletin's Board of Sponsors, which includes 19 Nobel Laureates.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Jan. 7 proposed stricter smog standards that would replace the Bush administration's broader 2008 national smog regulations, complying with scientific recommendations. The new smog restrictions would reduce the amount of smog emissions to between 0.060 and 0.070 parts per million (ppm) from the previous 0.075 ppm. The EPA estimates that these changes will help reduce the effects of climate change and improve public health, saving the US between $13 billion and $100 billion in health care costs.

US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar on Jan. 6 announced new rules for obtaining leases for oil and gas drilling on public lands. The new rules were designed to provide a greater public voice in deciding how the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) awards these leases. In a statement, Salazar said, "[w]e need a fresh look—from inside the federal government and from outside—at how we can better manage Americans' energy resources."

Some 100,000 marched Dec. 12 on Copenhagen's Bella Center, the sprawling and heavily fortified convention center where delegates and observers from 194 nations are gathered for the UN Climate Change Conference, known as COP 15, or the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Police made at least 968 arrests, including about 400 members of militant "Black Bloc" groups from across Europe. About 150 were released after questioning. (NYT, AFP, Dec. 12)

In several places around the world, marches commemorating Human Rights Day Dec. 11 were met with official harassment and repression. In Srinagar, capital of India-administrated Kashmir, police fired teargas and live rounds to disperse protesters, leaving at least 15 injured, including a young boy who sustained a bullet wound. (World Bulletin, Dec. 11) In Cuba, hundreds of government supporters jostled and jeered dissidents who staged two small marches in Havana. A 30-strong group of female relatives of political prisoners—known as "the Ladies in White" (Damas de Blanco)—marched through the capital chanting "liberty," carrying flowers, Cuban flags and copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A crowd of some 250 surrounded them and shouted "traitors" and "the street belongs to Fidel." A smaller march of about 10 dissidents in a park in the Vedado district was also surrounded and harassed. (The Guardian, Dec. 11)

Inaction to halt speculation on agricultural commodities and continued policies that promote "biofuels" are paving the way for a replay of the 2008 food price crisis in 2010 or 2011, warns Olivier De Schutter, the UN's special rapporteur on the right to food. The conditions that triggered the 2007-8 price crisis are still present, and panic in the international market is likely to reappear as early as next year, De Schutter said.

A new report in the journal Science finds that the contraction of Greenland's ice sheet has accelerated over the past years. Using computer modeling and satellite data, the team concluded that the ice mass shrank by 273 billion tons a year during the warm summers from 2006 to 2008—a roughly a 70% increase over the average 166 billion tons a year from 2000 to 2008. "It is clear from these results that mass loss from Greenland has been accelerating since the late 1990s and the underlying causes suggest this trend is likely to continue in the near future," said researcher Jonathan Bamber, one of the authors of the study. The Greenland ice sheet is the second largest in the world after Antarctica, and could increase sea level by 7 meters were it to completely melt. (Planet Earth Online, AFP, Nov. 13)

There were initially positive signals that the Obama administration was correcting the atrocious legacy of the Bush administration's denial of global climate destabilization—which extended to falsifying science and censoring dissenters. Now it appears that Obama's EPA is itself silencing critics of the administration's favored policy of carbon-trading. From the New York Times, Nov. 9: