IT IS 2 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
2018: 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. See the full statement from the Science and Security Board on the 2018 time of the Doomsday Clock.
This morning at 10am EST the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced the Doomsday Clock’s annual repositioning: 2 Minutes to Midnight.
One notable quote from today’s announcement came from CEO and President Rachel Bronson:
“Donald Trump might want to refrain from provocative rhetoric concerning North Korea…I’m not sure we know how North Korea interprets those statements… We need dialog with North Korea, at the very minimum open channels of military channels of communication. But we really need multiple channels of communication.”
This is the closest the Clock has ever been to midnight in the Bulletin’s 71-year history, with the exception of the height of USSR and US’s hydrogen bomb testing in 1953 when the Clock was set to the same position.
To compare today’s ‘nuclear climate’ to a period where major world powers were testing hydrogen bombs (possibly for use on one another) is a very bold statement, but with recent events, such as the false alarms of incoming North Korean ICBMs in Hawaii and Japan causing widespread panic, and relations with Iran being unpredictable, it isn’t unwarranted.
Midnight represents the event of nuclear war. The least pressing time came in 1991 with the end of the Cold War/Nuclear Arms Race with Russia, when the clock read ’17 mins to midnight.’ Since then, with the rise of other nuclear powers such as India, Pakistan, Iran, and now North Korea, the clock has leapt forwards 1-7 minutes at a time.
Take a look at The Bulletin’s Timeline of Doomsday Clock updates since 1947 HERE.
