Half a minute closer to doomsday
UNITED STATES: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved its Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to midnight for the second year in a row, declaring the world to be ‘‘two minutes to midnight’’.
The clock hasn’t been so close to midnight since 1953, the year the US and the Soviet Union reached significant milestones in their development of nuclear weapons.
The announcement yesterday in Washington, DC followed the scientific advocacy group’s decision a year ago to move the clock from three minutes to 21⁄2 minutes to midnight.
Every move closer to midnight implies a step closer to a nuclear apocalypse, says the group.
‘‘To call the world’s nuclear situation dire is to understate the danger and its immediacy,’’ said Rachel Bronson, president of the group.
She cited the ‘‘lack of predictability in how the United States is thinking about the future and future use of its own nuclear weapons, an unpredictability that is embodied in statements and tweets by the president of the United States’’.
Other problems included a lack of negotiations to advance arms control and nuclear nonproliferation; North Korea’s weapons testing; Russia’s nuclear posture; and ‘‘an enhanced commitment to nuclear weapons in Pakistan, India and China’’, Bronson said.
A year ago, the group cited ‘‘illconsidered’’ comments about expanding the US nuclear arsenal by President Donald Trump, then newly sworn into office, as one of the reasons for moving the clock.
This year, the scientists were urging Trump to ‘‘refrain from provocative rhetoric regarding North Korea’’, said Sharon Squassoni, a professor at George Washington University and member of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ board.
She and other board members urged the US to abide by the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump has threatened to cancel; pursue nuclear non-proliferation; and restart negotiations with Russia on reducing their nuclear arsenals, which comprise 95 per cent of all the nuclear weapons in the world.
The Doomsday Clock first appeared in 1947, as a graphic on the first cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ magazine. It was set at seven minutes to midnight then. In recent years, the group has recognised threats to the world beyond nuclear weapons, including climate change and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. The furthest the clock has been from midnight came in 1991, at 17 minutes, as Cold War tensions eased.
Robert Rosner, chairman of the group’s science and security panel, said the risk of using nuclear weapons ‘‘intentionally or because of miscalculation’’ had risen further in the last year. The arsenals of major nuclear weapons powers ‘‘are being updated and imbued with enhanced capabilities’’.
Squassoni said the upcoming Winter Olympics could provide a ‘‘tiny crack through which we might persuade North Korea to sit down to talks’’. – DPA