Doomsday Clock moves 30 seconds
WASHINGTON: The Doomsday Clock, a potent symbol of scientific concerns about humanity’s possible annihilation, was advanced by 30 seconds on Thursday, to two minutes to midnight, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced in Washington.
The last time the clock was moved so close to midnight was in 1953, during the Cold War.
“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 bulletin’s science and security board, which oversees the clock, said in a statement.
It cited the risks from North Korea’s nuclear programme; discord between Russia and the United States; tensions in the South China Sea; the build-up of the nuclear arsenals of Pakistan and India; and uncertainty over the Iran nuclear deal.
The scientists also warned that the sustained reductions in greenhouses gases needed to prevent disastrous warming of the planet had not yet occurred, and cited the dangers that technology disruption is causing for democracies, including disinformation campaigns intended to manipulate elections and undermine confidence in democracy.
They also found that “in 2017, the United States backed away from its longstanding leadership role in the world, reducing its commitment to seek common ground and undermining the overall effort toward solving pressing global governance challenges”.
The scientists cited, among other destabilising factors, the harsh rhetoric President Donald Trump has exchanged with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un; Mr Trump’s disavowal of the Iran deal; the hiring of climate-change deniers at the Environmental Protection Agency; and the administration’s plans to remake and expand the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
“Neither allies nor adversaries have been able to reliably predict US actions — or understand when US pronouncements are real, and when they are mere rhetoric,” the scientists found. “International diplomacy has been reduced to name-calling, giving it a surreal sense of unreality that makes the world security situation ever more threatening.”
The clock was last set at two minutes to midnight in 1953, after the Americans and then the Soviets tested thermonuclear weapons for the first time, within six months of each other. That was also the year that the Korean War ended — or, some would argue, paused — and President Dwight D Eisenhower unveiled Atoms for Peace, a programme intended to convince Americans that nuclear energy could be used to support research, medicine and agriculture and not only to destroy.
The clock has been adjusted many times since it debuted in 1947. Since 2010 — years before Mr Trump’s presidency — the needle has moved ever closer to midnight: five minutes in 2012, 3 minutes in 2015, and two-and-a-half minutes last year.
Along with nuclear proliferation and climate change — which first factored into the setting of the clock in 2007 — the scientists cited threats like the hacking of computer systems that control financial and energy infrastructure; the development of autonomous weaponry that can make “kill” decisions without human supervision; and the possible misuse of synthetic biology.