It’s that time of year when people tend to reflect on the best (and worst) of the last 12 months – and the topic of chemistry is no exception.

As usual, Chemical & Engineering News has released its highlights of the year.

If, however, you feel that a particularly outstanding piece of work has been left off the list, don’t worry, you can nominate it for a Chemmy Award over at ChemBark – go have a look at the categories and decide who is deserving of such an honour.

There is no doubt that chemical blogging has become very popular over the year, so with that in mind, go and vote for your favourite chemistry blog of the year at Chemical Forums. Although it is no longer with us, my vote goes to Tenderbutton.

Seasons’ greetings to all – and happy new year.

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Associate Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

It’s an insanely warm day out today in Boston (I walked to work in a t-shirt) and so even though you can’t equate one unusually warm end-of-November day to global warming, it’s still on my brain, so I thought I’d point your attention to the case before the US Supreme Court about global warming. According to the Washington Post, twelve states, led by Massachusetts, are suing the Environmental Protection Agency for not regulating greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles.

Not only is this case revealing how difficult it is for judges to wrestle with the science of climate change (the article gives a good quote from Justice Antonin Scalia about his ignorance of science), but it raises some intriguing questions about whether it is the EPA’s job (or some other agency) to regulate GHG emissions, if the EPA’s primary role has historically been to regulate pollutants. If CO~2~ isn’t a pollutant per se in the same way that, say, soot or SO~2~ is, then how should the government deal with it??

Luboš Motl, a physicist at Harvard, in his blog attacks the environmental groups that first petitioned the EPA to set GHG standards. He argues that the case is absurd because the EPA is charged with regulating chemicals that directly harm health of humans, flora, fauna and property. I don’t think it’s quite that simple, given what we know now about climate change. Yes, carbon dioxide by itself isn’t a poison and doesn’t kill fish or birds or anything but the huge amounts that we’re releasing into the atmosphere will likely cause harm (albeit indirectly) and so it should become part of the EPA’s mission, I think.

I like to compare CO~2~ to sugar or fat in the diet. By themselves, in moderation, sugar and fat good, essential things to have in your diet. Too much can kill you.