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SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT
INSTITUTE Failure in Madrid; European Green Deal Adopted CCC Board of Governors Adopt Climate Change and Sustainability Goals Doomsday Clock Set at 100 Seconds to Midnight SEI Proposes Network of Weather/Air Quality Stations Air Pollution Worsening in Los Angeles Region New Climate Corps Fellow at City College In the Classroom: Resources from Carleton College UC Certificate for Citizen Scientists News Briefs |
 Jerry Brown, Executive Chair of BAS, made the announcement in Washington, D.C.
Doomsday Clock Set at 100 Seconds to Midnight
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was established in 1945 by University of Chicago physicists who had worked on the Manhattan Project. Two years later its editors created the Doomsday Clock, a graphic means to indicate “threats to humanity and the planet.” Every year the clock is reset, as dangers are reassessed by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes some thirteen Nobel laureates. The clock was first set at seven minutes to midnight, then moved up to three minutes when the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear devices in 1949. In 1991, our best year ever, it was set at 17 minutes, after the US and Russia substantially reduced their nuclear arsenals at the end of the Cold War. By 2002, it was back to seven minutes, in part due to the increasing threat of nuclear terrorism. In 2007, the Bulletin added climate change to nuclear war as a dire threat to humanity, and in recent years, in the face of these two perils, the clock has moved increasingly forward: to three minutes in 2015 and to two in 2018, as world leaders undermined or ended arms control agreements and the climate crisis grew worse. Most recently, the Bulletin has added concern about the growing use of “cyber-enabled information warfare,” which undercuts the ability of society to respond to these dangers. The Bulletin’s scientists were impressed with last year’s international wave of youth protest against government inaction on the climate crisis, but they were sharply disappointed with the results from the Madrid COP25 talks (see related article). In an emphatic statement on January 23rd, the Bulletin announced that its board had voted to move the clock forward by twenty seconds: This situation—two major threats to human civilization, amplified by sophisticated, technology-propelled propaganda—would be serious enough if leaders around the world were focused on managing the danger and reducing the risk of catastrophe. Instead, over the last two years, we have seen influential leaders denigrate and discard the most effective methods for addressing complex threats—international agreements with strong verification regimes—in favor of their own narrow interests and domestic political gain. By undermining cooperative, science- and law-based approaches to managing the most urgent threats to humanity, these leaders have helped to create a situation that will, if unaddressed, lead to catastrophe, sooner rather than later... The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board today moves the Doomsday Clock 20 seconds closer to midnight—closer to apocalypse than ever. In so doing, board members are explicitly warning leaders and citizens around the world that the international security situation is now more dangerous than it has ever been, even at the height of the Cold War. Former Governor Jerry Brown, now Executive Chair of BAS, made the announcement in Washington, D.C., along with former President of Ireland Mary Robinson and Ban Ki-moon, two members of the Elders, independent global leaders working for peace and human rights. Brown said, “Dangerous rivalry and hostility among the superpowers increases the likelihood of nuclear blunder. Climate change just compounds the crisis. If there’s ever a time to wake up, it’s now.” |
