Doomsday Clock Stays At 90 Seconds To Midnight, Amid Many Threats
CHICAGO — There’s good news and bad news from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists who gathered this week to discuss resetting the Doomsday Clock in the Year of Openheimer. The bad news is that the world is still at a moment of historic danger. The good news? Atomic scientists decided to keep the big hand set at 90 seconds to midnight.
The Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, based in Hyde Park, meets at least twice a year to deliberate the Doomsday Clock. In January 2020, the minute hand was moved 30 seconds forward from two minutes to 100 seconds before midnight.
Although the clock remains set at 90 seconds to midnight – still the closest the clock has ever been to midnight – the members of the Science and Security Board said in a written statement they are deeply worried about the deteriorating state of the world tipping us toward global catastrophe:
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“The war in Ukraine and the widespread and growing reliance on nuclear weapons increase the risk of nuclear escalation. China, Russia, and the United States are all spending huge sums to expand or modernize their nuclear arsenals, adding to the ever-present danger of nuclear war through mistake or miscalculation.”
The atomic scientists also includes climate change on its list of threats, stating that Earth
experienced its hottest year on record in 2023, with massive floods, wildfires, and other climate-related disasters affecting millions of people around the world. Members of the Science and Security Board also blame governments’ “feeble efforts” to control the acceleration of “rapid and worrisome developments in the life sciences and other disruptive technologies.”
“Today, we once again set the Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight because humanity continues to face an unprecedented level of danger,” the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announcement said. “Our decision should not be taken as a sign that the international security situation has eased. Instead, leaders and citizens around the world should take this statement as a stark warning and respond urgently, as if today were the most dangerous moment in modern history. Because it may well be.”
Blame is also placed the emergence of artificial intelligence, Iran’s enrichment of uranium to near weapons grade, North Korea’s continued development of long range missiles capable of reaching Los Angeles, Calif., and India and Pakistan’s entry into the nuclear weapon arena. The war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, which the atomic scientists also say has the potential to escalate into a wider Middle Eastern conflict that could pose unpredictable threats, regionally and globally.
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“Nuclear spending programs in the three largest nuclear powers—China, Russia, and the United States—threaten to trigger a three-way nuclear arms race as the world’s arms control architecture collapses,” the atomic scientists said. “Russia and China are expanding their nuclear capabilities, and pressure mounts in Washington for the United States to respond in kind.”
Up until Tuesday, the clock has been moved 24 times in its 77-year history. The Doomsday Clock was reset at 17 minutes before midnight — the furthest back it has ever been set — due largely to the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the United States and Soviet Union, ending the Cold War.
The closest the hands ever came was two minutes to midnight in 1953, when Russia and the United States were testing hydrogen bombs. Even during the Cuban Missile in 1962, when the world was seemingly on the brink of nuclear war, the clock remained set at seven minutes to midnight.
The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947 as a visual indicator of global apocalypse by the Bulletin, which was founded two years earlier by scientists Albert Einstein, J Robert Oppenheimer and Eugene Rabinowitch, along with other University of Chicago scholars.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists still insists that the minute hand can be pushed further back from midnight on the Doomsday Clock, provided that the three leading nuclear powers – the United States, Russia and China – engage in some serious dialogue and “have the capacity to pull the world back from the brink of catastrophe.”
“Everyone on Earth has an interest in reducing the likelihood of global catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, advances in the life sciences, disruptive technologies, and the widespread corruption of the world’s information ecosystem. These threats, singularly and as they interact, are of such a character and magnitude that no one nation or leader can bring them under control.”
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