The world is just ‘2 minutes’ away from a major catastrophe
arising from climate change and nuclear weapons. The Doomsday Clock has been
set to 11.58 p.m.
The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947 by the Board of the
magazine The Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists. The Bulletin was founded in 1945 by scientists who created the
atomic bomb. Shocked by the devastation caused by the Hiroshima bomb, the
scientists wanted to raise awareness about the dangers of nuclear technology.
The Clock is a symbolic indicator that warns the public
about how close the world is to a potentially civilization-ending catastrophe.
Each year, the magazine’s Board analyses threats to humanity’s survival to
decide where the Doomsday Clock’s hands should be set. The closer the Clock is
to midnight, the closer we are to global calamity.
In 1947, the Clock was set to 11.53 p.m. Since then the
Clock was moved forward and backward depending on the state of the nuclear
threat. When the US and the erstwhile USSR conducted their first tests of the
hydrogen bomb, the hands were moved to 11.58 p.m. In 1991, when the world’s
superpowers signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the Clock was set to
11:43 p.m.
Now, the Clock has become a universally recognised
indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from climate change,
nuclear weapons, and new technologies emerging in other domains. The Clock is
reset every January. In January 2017, after the election of Donald Trump as the
US President, the Clock was set to 2.5 min to midnight. On January 25, 2018, it
was set to 11.58 p.m.
Citing growing nuclear risks and unchecked climate
dangers, the iconic Doomsday Clock is now 30 seconds closer to midnight, the
closest to the symbolic point of annihilation that the Clock has been since
1953 at the height of the Cold War. The decision to move the Doomsday Clock to
two minutes before midnight was made by the Bulletin’s Science and
Security Board in consultation with the Board of Sponsors, which includes 15
Nobel Laureates.
The 2018 statement explaining
the resetting of the time of the Doomsday Clock noted: “In
2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of
nuclear war and climate change, making the world security situation more
dangerous than it was a year ago—and as dangerous as it has been since World
War II. The greatest risks last year arose in the nuclear realm. North Korea’s
nuclear weapons program appeared to make remarkable progress in 2017,
increasing risks for itself, other countries in the region, and the United
States. Hyperbolic rhetoric and provocative actions on both sides have
increased the possibility of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation …. On the climate
change front, the danger may seem less immediate, but avoiding catastrophic
temperature increases in the long run requires urgent attention now …. The nations of the world will have to significantly decrease their
greenhouse gas emissions to keep climate risks manageable, and so far, the
global response has fallen far short of meeting this challenge.”
The Bulletin also said: “The failure of
world leaders to address the largest threats to humanity’s future is
lamentable—but that failure can be reversed. It is two minutes to midnight, but
the Doomsday Clock has ticked away from midnight in the past, and during the
next year, the world can again move it further from apocalypse. The warning the
Science and Security Board now sends is clear, the danger obvious and imminent.
The opportunity to reduce the danger is equally clear. The world has seen the
threat posed by the misuse of information technology and witnessed the
vulnerability of democracies to disinformation. But there is a flip side to the
abuse of social media. Leaders react when citizens insist they do so, and citizens
around the world can use the power of the internet to improve the long-term
prospects of their children and grandchildren. They can insist on facts, and
discount nonsense. They can demand action to reduce the existential threat of
nuclear war and unchecked climate change. They can seize the opportunity to
make a safer and saner world.”
Sivan Kartha, senior scientist at the
Stockholm Environmental Institute and a member of the Bulletin’s Science
and Security Board, said: “2017 just clocked in as the hottest year on record
that wasn’t boosted by an El Nino. And that matches what we’ve witnessed on the
ground: the Caribbean suffered a season of historic damage from exceedingly
powerful hurricanes, extreme heat waves struck across the globe, the Arctic ice
cap hit its lowest winter peak on record, and the US suffered devastating
wildfires. And while this was happening, the Trump administration dutifully
carried through on the campaign promise of derailing US climate policy, putting
avowed climate denialists in top cabinet positions, and announcing plans to
withdraw from the Paris climate Agreement. Thankfully, this didn’t cause global
cooperation to unravel, and other countries have reaffirmed their commitment to
take action against climate change.”
