Doomsday Clock Remains Unchanged, Warns of Existential Midnight

By Alissa Tabirian

Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
1/29/2016

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ symbolic Doomsday Clock remains set at three minutes to midnight, representing a lack of progress in preventing global annihilation, the publication’s Science and Security Board announced Tuesday. The clock envisions an apocalyptic scenario as midnight, and since 1947 its minute hand has been adjusted 21 times to reflect changes in the threat of nuclear and climate-related disaster.

“The clock remains at the closest to the brink since 1983, when U.S.-Russian tensions were also at their iciest in decades,” board member Lawrence Krauss, foundation professor of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, said at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The minute hand, set to three minutes to midnight early last year, remains in the same place, a decision the board called “an expression of dismay that world leaders continue to fail to focus their efforts and the world’s attention on reducing the extreme danger posed by nuclear weapons and climate change.”

The board noted the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran and the Paris climate agreement as positive steps toward averting a global crisis, but highlighted rising tensions between the United States and Russia, as well as several nations’ nuclear weapons modernization programs, as factors behind an overall grim existential picture. “Nuclear modernization programs in the U.S. and Russia violate the spirit and, I believe, the letter of the [Nuclear] Nonproliferation Treaty,” Krauss said, questioning that “aside from the damaging impact on our economy, what message does this send to non-nuclear nations about our intents?” Calling the U.S. nuclear modernization program a disappointment, Krauss added that “there is no sane strategic use of nuclear weapons and we need to reduce our nuclear arsenal, not create a new generation of weapons.”

Science and Security Board member Sharon Squassoni, director of the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, also noted that in addition to the U.S. and Russian modernization programs, China, Pakistan, India, and North Korea are increasing their nuclear arsenals. “It is very hard to reduce your reliance on nuclear weapons when you expect to spend more than $350 billion modernizing them,” Squassoni said of the U.S. program.

Squassoni said a lack of progress in multilateral arms control measures has also contributed to a grim threat assessment. While the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) continues to be implemented, “there is no follow-on arms control agreement in sight,” she said. Moreover, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty “is not very much closer to coming into force,” and the U.S. and Russia are now disputing Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty compliance, she added.

To turn back the minute hand of the clock, the board recommended dramatic reductions in nuclear arms modernization program spending, a renewed push in disarmament efforts, engagement with North Korea for nuclear risk reduction, greater greenhouse gas emission reduction efforts, the securing of interim and permanent nuclear waste storage facilities to address commercial nuclear waste, and the establishment of institutions – and strengthening of existing ones – to analyze “potentially catastrophic misuses of new technologies.” The minute hand has ranged from showing two minutes until midnight in 1953 to 17 minutes in 1991.

Speaking from Stanford University, former Secretary of Defense William Perry said the “most dangerous aspect” is not the cost of nuclear modernization, but the risk that it could provoke an “accidental nuclear war.” The current danger of nuclear catastrophe, he said, “is greater than it was during the Cold War.” Joining Perry, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said, “we’ve got to face the apocalypse” by taking concrete steps to avoid a “mushroom cloud of disaster.” Brown added, “Blowing up the world is pretty bad.”

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January 26, 2016

Doomsday Clock Remains Unchanged, Warns of Existential Midnight

By ExchangeMonitor

“The clock remains at the closest to the brink since 1983, when U.S.-Russian tensions were also at their iciest in decades,” Lawrence Krauss, foundation professor of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, said at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The minute hand, set to three minutes to midnight last year, remains in the same place, a decision the board called “an expression of dismay that world leaders continue to fail to focus their efforts and the world’s attention on reducing the extreme danger posed by nuclear weapons and climate change.”

The board noted the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran and the Paris climate agreement as positive steps toward averting a global crisis, but highlighted rising tensions between the United States and Russia, as well as nuclear weapons modernization programs, as factors behind an overall grim existential picture. “Nuclear modernization programs in the U.S. and Russia violate the spirit and, I believe, the letter of the [Nuclear] Nonproliferation Treaty,” Krauss said, charging that “aside from the damaging impact on our economy, what message does this send to non-nuclear nations about our intents?” Calling the U.S. nuclear modernization program a disappointment, Krauss added that “there is no sane strategic use of nuclear weapons and we need to reduce our nuclear arsenal, not create a new generation of weapons.”

Sharon Squassoni, director of the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, also noted that in addition to the U.S. and Russian modernization programs, China, Pakistan, India, and North Korea are increasing their nuclear arsenals. “It is very hard to reduce your reliance on nuclear weapons when you expect to spend more than $350 billion modernizing them,” Squassoni said. Speaking from Stanford University, former Secretary of Defense William Perry said that the “most dangerous aspect” is not the cost of nuclear modernization, but the risk that it could provoke an “accidental nuclear war.” Joining Perry, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said, “we’ve got to face the apocalypse” by taking concrete steps to avoid a “mushroom cloud of disaster.” Brown added, “Blowing up the world is pretty bad.”

Comments are closed.