tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/doomsday-clock-14562/articlesDoomsday Clock – The Conversation2024-01-24T23:42:25Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2218712024-01-24T23:42:25Z2024-01-24T23:42:25ZThe Doomsday Clock is still at 90 seconds to midnight. But what does that mean?<p>Once every year, a select group of nuclear, climate and technology experts assemble to determine where to place the hands of the Doomsday Clock.</p>
<p>Presented by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Doomsday Clock is a visual metaphor for humanity’s proximity to catastrophe. It measures our collective peril in minutes and seconds to midnight, and we don’t want to strike 12.</p>
<p>In 2023, the expert group brought the clock the closest it has ever been to midnight: 90 seconds. On January 23 2024, <a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/">the Doomsday Clock was unveiled again</a>, revealing that the hands remain in the same precarious position.</p>
<p>No change might bring a sigh of relief. But it also points to the continued risk of catastrophe. The question is, how close are we to catastrophe? And if so, why?</p>
<h2>Destroyer of worlds</h2>
<p>The invention of the atomic bomb in 1945 ushered in a new era: the first time humanity had the capability to kill itself.</p>
<p>Later that year, Albert Einstein, along with J. Robert Oppenheimer and other Manhattan Project scientists, established the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in the hope of communicating to the public about the new nuclear age and the threat it posed.</p>
<p>Two years on, the Bulletin, as it came to be known, published its first magazine. And on the cover: a clock, with the minute hand suspended eerily only seven minutes from midnight.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571103/original/file-20240124-19-crftcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571103/original/file-20240124-19-crftcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571103/original/file-20240124-19-crftcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571103/original/file-20240124-19-crftcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571103/original/file-20240124-19-crftcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571103/original/file-20240124-19-crftcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1029&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571103/original/file-20240124-19-crftcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1029&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571103/original/file-20240124-19-crftcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1029&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cover of the 1947 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists issue, featuring the Doomsday Clock at seven minutes to midnight.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock#/media/File:Bulletin_Atomic_Scientists_Cover.jpg">Public domain/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The artist Martyl Langsdorf sought to communicate the sense of urgency she had felt from scientists who had worked on the bomb, including her physicist husband, Alexander. The placement was, to her, an aesthetic choice: “It seemed the right time on the page … it suited my eye.”</p>
<p>Thereafter, Bulletin editor Eugene Rabinowitch was the gears behind the clock’s hands until his passing in 1973, when the board of experts took over.</p>
<p>The clock has been moved 25 times since, particularly in response to the ebb and flow of military buildups, technological advancement and geopolitical dynamics during the Cold War.</p>
<p>Nuclear risk did not abate after the collapse of the Soviet Union, even as the total number of nuclear weapons shrank. And new threats have emerged that pose catastrophic risk to humanity. The latest setting of the clock attempts to gauge this level of risk.</p>
<h2>A precarious world</h2>
<p>In the words of Bulletin president and chief executive Rachel Bronson:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Make no mistake: resetting the Clock at 90 seconds to midnight is not an indication that the world is stable. Quite the opposite.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Bulletin cited four key sources of risk: nuclear weapons, climate change, biological threats, and advances in artificial intelligence (AI).</p>
<p>Two ongoing conflicts – Russia and Ukraine, and Israel and Palestine – involve nuclear-weapon states. Longstanding bulwarks of nuclear stability, such as the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the United States and Russia, are barely functional. North Korea and Iran retain their nuclear ambitions. And China is quickly growing and modernising its nuclear arsenal. </p>
<p>The impacts of climate change are worsening, as the world suffers through its hottest years on record. Six of nine planetary boundaries are beyond their safe levels. And we are likely to fall short of the goal set by the Paris climate agreement – keeping temperature increase to no more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Dramatic climatic disruptions are a real possibility.</p>
<p>The COVID pandemic revealed the global impacts of a biological threat. Engineered pandemics, created using synthetic bioengineering (and perhaps soon aided by AI tools), could be more viral and lethal than any natural disease. Add to the challenge the continued presence of biological weapons programs around the world, and the shifting disease risk due to the effects of climate change, and biothreats will be a regular battlefront for many countries.</p>
<p>Finally, the Bulletin recognised the risk that comes with advances in AI. While some AI experts have raised the prospect of AI itself being an existential threat, AI is also a threat multiplier for nuclear or biological weapons. And AI could be a vulnerability multiplier. Through AI-enabled disinformation, democracies might struggle to function, especially when dealing with other catastrophic threats.</p>
<h2>Subjective and imprecise, but does that matter?</h2>
<p>The Doomsday Clock has its detractors. Critics argue that the setting of the clock is based on subjective judgements, not a quantitative or transparent methodology. What’s more, it is not a precise measurement. What does “90 seconds to midnight” actually mean?</p>
<p>With the clock now set at its highest ever level, it naturally brings into question why we face greater risk than, say, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. What would it take to get closer than 90 seconds to midnight?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/doomsday-clock-moves-closer-to-midnight-but-can-we-really-predict-the-end-of-the-world-36632">Doomsday Clock moves closer to midnight, but can we really predict the end of the world?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Fundamentally, these criticisms are accurate. And there are plenty of ways the clock could be technically improved. The Bulletin should consider them. But the critics also miss the point.</p>
<p>The Doomsday Clock is not a risk assessment. It’s a metaphor. It’s a symbol. It is, for lack of a better term, a vibe.</p>
<h2>A powerful image of nebulous threats</h2>
<p>From the very beginning, when seven minutes to midnight “suited the eye”, the Doomsday Clock was an emotional and visceral response to the nuclear moment. Which is why it has become a powerful image, drawing the eyes of the world every year. </p>
<p>Global catastrophic threats are nebulous and complex and overwhelming. With just four dots and two hands, the Doomsday Clock captures the sense of urgency like few images can.</p>
<p>There are better and more actionable ways to assess risk. A handful of countries, for example, conduct national risk assessments. These are formal and regular processes by which governments assess a range of threats to the country, prioritising them on a quantitative scale and building response plans for the highest risk vectors. More countries should conduct these assessments, and be sure to catalogue global catastrophic threats.</p>
<p>Or take the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Risk Report. Based on a survey of around 1,500 experts from across academia, business, government and civil society, it captures the greatest perceived threats over the following two and ten years. Following a similar method, the United Nations is currently conducting its own survey of global risk.</p>
<p>The Doomsday Clock does not replace efforts to understand and assess the greatest threats we face. If anything, it should inspire them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221871/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rumtin Sepasspour works for Global Shield, a non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to reducing global catastrophic risk. He has previously written for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.</span></em></p>The Doomsday Clock is not a precise risk assessment, it’s a flawed but powerful metaphor for the catastrophic risk humanity facesRumtin Sepasspour, Visiting Fellow, School of Regulation and Global Governance, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1984572023-01-25T16:51:32Z2023-01-25T16:51:32ZThe Doomsday Clock is now at 90 seconds to midnight — the closest we have ever been to global catastrophe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506257/original/file-20230125-20-t4ybn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5953%2C3966&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">At 90 seconds to midnight, the Doomsday Clock indicates the level of human-made threats.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Jan. 24, history was again made when the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ organization moved the seconds hand of the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight. It is now at ‘90 seconds to midnight,’ the closest it has ever been to the symbolic midnight hour of global catastrophe.</p>
<p>The announcement, made during a news conference held in Washington D.C., was delivered in English, Ukrainian and Russian. The released statement described our current moment in history as “<a href="https://storage.pardot.com/878782/1674512728rAkm0Vt3/2023_doomsday_clock_statement.pdf">a time of unprecedented danger</a>.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KxB9dM0u4mU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The virtual news conference hosted by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists for the Doomsday Clock Announcement.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The hands of the Doomsday Clock are set by the <a href="https://thebulletin.org/about-us/science-and-security-board/">Science and Security Board</a> of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. These leading experts focus on the perils posed by human-made disaster threats, which emanate from <a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/nuclear-risk/">nuclear risk</a>, <a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/climate-change/">climate change</a>, <a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/biological-threats/">biological threats</a> and <a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/disruptive-technologies/">disruptive technologies</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-doomsday-clock-and-why-should-we-keep-track-of-the-time-71990">What is the Doomsday Clock and why should we keep track of the time?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Doomsday Clock is the most graphic depiction of human-made threats, and the act of moving the clock forward communicates a clear and urgent need for vigilance. </p>
<p>For 2021 and 2022, the clock’s hands were set at 100 seconds to midnight. Since this <a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/timeline/">time-keeping exercise began in 1947</a>, the announcement on Jan. 24, 2023 represents the closest the clock has ever been to midnight — a clear wake-up call. </p>
<h2>Threats over time</h2>
<p>In 1945, a group of scientists who worked on the <a href="https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/The%20Manhattan%20Project.pdf">Manhattan Project</a> — a United States research project into atomic weapons — joined together to form the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. </p>
<p>In the late 1940s, the new threat of atomic weapons cast a dark cloud over the world. The Doomsday Clock was meant to be a warning to humanity about the dangers of nuclear weapons; later in the 20th century it was expanded to consider other human-made threats.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506268/original/file-20230125-22-6yb4mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a bright white dome against a grey background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506268/original/file-20230125-22-6yb4mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506268/original/file-20230125-22-6yb4mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506268/original/file-20230125-22-6yb4mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506268/original/file-20230125-22-6yb4mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506268/original/file-20230125-22-6yb4mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506268/original/file-20230125-22-6yb4mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506268/original/file-20230125-22-6yb4mn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A plasma dome produced by the first detonation of an atomic weapon on July 16, 1945 during the Manhattan Project’s research in New Mexico.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1991, the clock was set at 17 minutes to midnight, the furthest the clock has ever been from doomsday. This move followed <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/fall-of-soviet-union">the collapse of the Soviet Union</a> and the signing of the <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/start1">Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty by the United States and Russia</a>. In the 1990s, the world felt somewhat safer for a few years.</p>
<p>The 2010s brought the world closer to the brink of nuclear war than at any time other than the present. </p>
<p>U.S. relations with other global nuclear powers like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/12/nuclear-weapons-russia-china-us-national-security-strategy">Russia and China</a> became increasingly tense. The <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-iran-nuclear-deal">Iran nuclear deal was abandoned</a>, affecting the <a href="https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/what-losing-the-iran-deal-could-mean-for-the-region/">geopolitics of the Middle East</a>. The threat from North Korea’s nuclear arsenal <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/12/08/north-korea-tactical-nuclear-threat/">entered an alarming new phase</a>. Along with the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/23/donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-russia">dangerous rhetoric of former President Donald Trump</a> and the global rise of the far right, the stage was set for the 2020s to be a tumultuous decade.</p>
<p>In 2023, the global crises we are currently contending with have devastatingly broad consequences and potentially longer-lasting effects. Our current moment is unsustainable, especially as catastrophic threats multiply and intensify. </p>
<p>Layered crises range from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine involving <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putins-nuclear-blackmail-must-not-prevent-the-liberation-of-crimea/">Vladimir Putin’s thinly veiled nuclear threats</a> to the social and economic strains still present at the <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/friday-marks-2nd-anniversary-of-covid-pandemic/6480486.html">third year of the COVID-19 pandemic</a>. These are unprecedented challenges to human survival.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506271/original/file-20230125-20-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="an armed soldier in Russian military uniform stands guard outside a factory" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506271/original/file-20230125-20-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506271/original/file-20230125-20-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506271/original/file-20230125-20-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506271/original/file-20230125-20-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506271/original/file-20230125-20-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506271/original/file-20230125-20-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506271/original/file-20230125-20-102fb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in southeastern Ukraine was in Russian-controlled territory when a Russian missile damaged a distant electrical substation, increasing the risk of radiation disaster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Apocalyptic anxieties</h2>
<p>As the Doomsday Clock is now set at 90 seconds to midnight, the situation adds stress to an already anxious global populace. </p>
<p>In Europe, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/12/world/europe/ukraine-europe-nuclear-war-anxiety.html">fears of COVID-19 were rapidly replaced by fears of a nuclear war</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.2190/H1EP-3HHW-3NYW-FXQ9">Death anxiety — produced by a fear of dying — is related to nuclear anxiety</a>, and the threat of nuclear war provoked by daily headlines <a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220929-the-unsettling-power-of-existential-dread">could shape the way we think and act</a>. </p>
<p>Nuclear weapons prompt a <a href="https://www.icanw.org/dealing_with_nuclear_anxiety">special existential anxiety</a>, as weapons of mass destruction have the potential to eradicate entire cultures, lands, languages and lives. In the case of a nuclear attack, the future would be altered in a way that becomes inconceivable for us to process.</p>
<p>Philosopher Langdon Winner wrote that “during the post-World War II era, in a sense <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo49911830.html">all of us became unwitting subjects for a vast series of biological and social experiments</a>, the results of which became apparent very slowly.”</p>
<p>For those who grew up during the mid-20th century peak of the Cold War, and into the early 1980s, <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/nuclear-anxiety-is-nothing-new-heres-how-to-handle-it">the resurgence of these worries carries a distinct tinge of déjà vu</a>. To counter this recurring dread, <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/war-anxiety-how-to-cope-202205232748">coping tools include</a> limiting media exposure, reaching out to others, cultivating compassion and changing your routine.</p>
<h2>The time to act is now</h2>
<p>The significance of the Doomsday Clock as a metaphorical time-keeping exercise serves as a graphic symbol of human-made multiplying perils. As the time to midnight has drawn closer, the urgency of the threat is intensified. </p>
<p>Whether or not one lives in one of the <a href="https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/">nine nations in possession of nuclear weapons</a>, we have all become unwitting subjects of the experiment that began with <a href="https://www.energy.gov/lm/doe-history/manhattan-project-background-information-and-preservation-work/manhattan-project-1">the detonation of the first atomic weapon</a>.</p>
<p>In 2023, the Doomsday Clock tells us that we are now 90 metaphorical seconds away from self-produced extinction. Time is of the essence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198457/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack L. Rozdilsky is a Professor at York University who receives external funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research as a co-investigator on a project supported under operating grant Canadian 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Rapid Research Funding.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian Faize Canaan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1945, nuclear scientists established the Doomsday Clock to warn against human-made threats. This week, the clock’s display has brought us the closest we have ever been to global disaster.Jack L. Rozdilsky, Associate Professor of Disaster and Emergency Management, York University, CanadaChristian Faize Canaan, Master’s student, Disaster and Emergency Management, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1817832022-04-22T02:30:28Z2022-04-22T02:30:28ZWhy the war in Ukraine is pushing the Doomsday Clock’s hands closer to midnight<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459210/original/file-20220422-18-gj10w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C15%2C3494%2C2604&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The so-called Doomsday Clock, created by the <a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/">Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists</a> to measure the imminent risk of nuclear conflagration, has been at 100 seconds to midnight since 2020. It’s now looking increasingly out of time with current events.</p>
<p>News that Russia has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/20/russia-tests-nuclear-missile-putin-intercontinental-ballistic-weapon">tested a nuclear-capable missile</a> this week, and <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/15/politics/tapper-zelensky-interview-cnntv/index.html">warnings</a> by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Russia may resort to nuclear or chemical weapons, suggest the clock’s hands should be moving.</p>
<p>To bring events to this point, Russian president Vladimir Putin has exploited gaps in international law and policy that have failed to better regulate the arsenals of the world’s nuclear powers.</p>
<p>Perhaps following former US president <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42549687">Donald Trump’s lead</a>, Putin has broken with diplomatic norms around the reckless use of nuclear rhetoric, <a href="https://news.sky.com/video/if-you-try-to-stop-us-youll-face-consequences-that-you-have-never-faced-in-your-history-12550243">threatening</a> the West it would “face consequences that you have never faced in your history”.</p>
<p>And following the failure of the international community to create a convention that nuclear weapons should be kept at a <a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA536263#:%7E:text=De%2Dalerting%20is%20defined%20as,required%20to%20launch%20these%20weapons.">non-alert status</a> (meaning they can’t be fired quickly), Putin has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/us/politics/putin-nuclear-alert-biden-deescalation.html">put his nuclear forces</a> into “special combat readiness”.</p>
<p>Sabre-rattling or not, these are worrying developments in a world that has struggled to pull back from the precipice of nuclear disaster since the Doomsday Clock began in 1947.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459211/original/file-20220422-16-p1d2gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459211/original/file-20220422-16-p1d2gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459211/original/file-20220422-16-p1d2gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459211/original/file-20220422-16-p1d2gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459211/original/file-20220422-16-p1d2gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459211/original/file-20220422-16-p1d2gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459211/original/file-20220422-16-p1d2gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ramping up the rhetoric: Vladimir Putin speaks at a concert marking the anniversary of the 2014 annexation of Crimea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Putting back the clock</h2>
<p>Even when the United States and Russia <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-crisis">were closest to a nuclear conflict</a> during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the clock only got to seven minutes to midnight.</p>
<p>While the clock moved backwards and forwards as threats came and went, the US and Russia <a href="https://www.state.gov/new-start/#:%7E:text=The%20United%20States%20and%20Russian,standard%20in%20arms%20control%20agreements.">extended the bilateral arms control treaty</a> capping the number of deployed warheads, and in January this year the five main nuclear powers <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/01/03/p5-statement-on-preventing-nuclear-war-and-avoiding-arms-races/">agreed</a> that a nuclear war “cannot be won and must never be fought”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-is-sparking-new-nuclear-threats-understanding-nonproliferation-history-helps-place-this-in-context-180533">Russia is sparking new nuclear threats – understanding nonproliferation history helps place this in context</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The very next month this small pause of reason was broken when Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.</p>
<p>Although Ukraine is hardly comparable to Cuba in the 1960s – there were no missiles on Russia’s doorstep and no blockade – Putin feared the country could potentially become a nuclear base for NATO. His aim has been to force all the former Eastern bloc countries now aligned with the West to agree to their 1997 <a href="https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/rso/nato/1790803/?lang=en">pre-NATO positions</a>.</p>
<p>To achieve this, Putin violated the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-1">United Nations Charter</a>, sidelined the rule of global order set by the <a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/182/182-20220316-ORD-01-00-EN.pdf">International Court of Justice</a>, and possibly allowed his military to commit <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/03/ukraine-apparent-war-crimes-russia-controlled-areas">war crimes</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1516830112867663878"}"></div></p>
<h2>Tactical nuke fears</h2>
<p>Since <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-09/news/us-completes-inf-treaty-withdrawal">Trump quit</a> the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, Putin has been free to rebuild and redeploy his nuclear land forces.</p>
<p>Perhaps most ominously, Russia (to be fair, not alone) has been interested in developing low-yield tactical nuclear weapons (typically smaller than the 15 kiloton bomb that destroyed Hiroshima) to give battlefield “flexibility”.</p>
<p>These weapons would <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2020/12/do-tactical-nukes-break-international-law/#:%7E:text=No%20specific%20treaty%20currently%20in%20force%20effectively%20prohibits%20their%20use.">breach international humanitarian laws</a> and their use could <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/limited-tactical-nuclear-weapons-would-be-catastrophic/">quickly spiral out of control</a>, but there is no international law prohibiting them.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-tougher-trade-sanctions-3-more-ways-nz-can-add-to-global-pressure-on-russia-180783">Beyond tougher trade sanctions: 3 more ways NZ can add to global pressure on Russia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Finally, Putin has exploited the world’s failure to form a nuclear “<a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/no-first-use-explained">no first use</a>” agreement. Current <a href="http://kremlin.ru/acts/bank/45562">Russian nuclear doctrine</a> doesn’t require an enemy state to use nuclear weapons against it as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/26/russia-reasserts-right-to-use-nuclear-weapons-in-ukraine-putin">justification for its own strike</a>.</p>
<p>A nuclear build-up by a potential adversary in neighbouring territories would be justification enough, along with a number of other potential non-nuclear triggers.</p>
<p>While the use of nuclear weapons to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Russian state might sound reasonable, the illegal <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/03/17/crimea-six-years-after-illegal-annexation/">annexation of Crimea</a> in 2014 shows how available such justifications might be.</p>
<h2>‘Unpredictable consequences’</h2>
<p>The worst has so far been avoided because the US and its NATO allies are not belligerents in the Ukraine war, having carefully avoided direct involvement, declining appeals for a NATO-enforced <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-03-15/biden-stands-firm-against-no-fly-zone-as-zelenskyy-prepares-to-address-congress">no-fly zone</a>.</p>
<p>But the West is hardly neutral. Providing weapons to assist one country’s fight with another is an unfriendly act by any definition. While the amount and variety of that military aid has been carefully calibrated, it is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/biden-announce-another-large-military-aid-package-ukraine-sources-say-2022-04-19/">growing</a> and it has clearly made a significant difference on the battlefield.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-crisis-how-do-small-states-like-new-zealand-respond-in-an-increasingly-lawless-world-177919">Ukraine crisis: how do small states like New Zealand respond in an increasingly lawless world?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In return, Russia continues to ramp up the rhetoric, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/15/russia-warns-us-of-repercussions-if-it-sends-more-arms-to-ukraine-reports">warning the West</a> of “unpredictable consequences” should military assistance continue.</p>
<p>And while the director of the CIA has moved to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/14/us/politics/putin-nuclear-weapons.html">quieten concerns</a>, saying there is no “practical evidence” Russia might resort to using nuclear weapons, what happens from here is hard to predict.</p>
<p>As has been the case since the Doomsday Clock was first set 75 years ago, our possible futures lie in the minds and hands of a very small group of decision makers in Moscow and Washington.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181783/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Gillespie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The world’s failure to contain the nuclear threat is frighteningly evident in the potential risk of war in Ukraine spinning out of control.Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1750492022-01-19T18:59:37Z2022-01-19T18:59:37ZHow long to midnight? The Doomsday Clock measures more than nuclear risk – and it’s about to be reset again<p>In less than 24 hours the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will update the <a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/">Doomsday Clock</a>. It’s currently at 100 seconds from midnight – the metaphorical time when the human race could destroy the world with technologies of its own making.</p>
<p>The hands have never before been this close to midnight. There is scant hope of it winding back on what will be its 75th anniversary.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1480252823719890951"}"></div></p>
<p>The clock was originally devised as a way to draw attention to nuclear conflagration. But the scientists who <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/bulletin-atomic-scientists">founded the Bulletin</a> in 1945 were less focused on the initial use of “the bomb” than on the irrationality of <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2022/01/five-nuclear-weapon-states-vow-to-prevent-nuclear-war-while-modernizing-arsenals/">stockpiling weapons</a> for the sake of nuclear hegemony. </p>
<p>They realised more bombs did not increase the chances of winning a war or make anyone safe when just one bomb would be enough to <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2021/11/the-untold-story-of-the-worlds-biggest-nuclear-bomb/">destroy New York</a>.</p>
<p>While nuclear annihilation remains the most probable and acute existential threat to humanity, it is now only one of the potential catastrophes the Doomsday Clock measures. As the Bulletin puts it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies in other domains.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="atomic bomb from 1944" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441417/original/file-20220118-17-1gbw1vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441417/original/file-20220118-17-1gbw1vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441417/original/file-20220118-17-1gbw1vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441417/original/file-20220118-17-1gbw1vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441417/original/file-20220118-17-1gbw1vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441417/original/file-20220118-17-1gbw1vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441417/original/file-20220118-17-1gbw1vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The atomic bomb codenamed ‘Little Boy’, the same type later dropped on Hiroshima, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1944.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Multiple connected threats</h2>
<p>At a personal level, I feel some sense of academic kinship with the clock makers. Mentors of mine, notably <a href="http://molbio.uoregon.edu/novick-history/">Aaron Novick</a>, and others who profoundly influenced how I see my own scientific discipline and approach to science, were among those who formed and joined the early Bulletin.</p>
<p>In 2022, their warning extends beyond weapons of mass destruction to include other technologies that concentrate potentially existential hazards – including climate change and its root causes in over-consumption and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y">extreme affluence</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/affluence-is-killing-the-planet-warn-scientists-141017">Affluence is killing the planet, warn scientists</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Many of these threats are well known already. For example, <a href="https://www.unep.org/resources/report/global-chemicals-outlook-ii-legacies-innovative-solutions">commercial chemical use</a> is all pervasive, as is the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/18/chemical-pollution-has-passed-safe-limit-for-humanity-say-scientists?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco">toxic waste</a> it creates. There are tens of thousands of large scale waste sites in the US alone, with 1,700 hazardous “<a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/superfund/">superfund sites</a>” prioritised for clean-up.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/08/us/houston-hurricane-harvey-harzardous-chemicals.html">Hurricane Harvey</a> showed when it hit the Houston area in 2017, these sites are extremely vulnerable. An estimated two million kilograms of airborne contaminants above regulatory limits were released, 14 toxic waste sites were flooded or damaged, and dioxins were found in a major river at levels over <a href="https://response.epa.gov/site/site_profile.aspx?site_id=12353">200 times higher</a> than recommended maximum concentrations.</p>
<p>That was just one major metropolitan area. With increasing storm severity due to climate change, the <a href="https://environmentnorthcarolina.org/reports/nce/perfect-storm">risks to toxic waste sites</a> grow.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-could-take-a-global-lead-in-controlling-the-development-of-killer-robots-so-why-isnt-it-166168">New Zealand could take a global lead in controlling the development of 'killer robots' — so why isn't it?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>At the same time, the Bulletin has increasingly turned its attention to the rise of artificial intelligence, <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2021/04/worried-about-the-autonomous-weapons-of-the-future-look-at-whats-already-gone-wrong/">autonomous weaponry</a>, and mechanical and biological robotics.</p>
<p>The movie clichés of cyborgs and “killer robots” tend to disguise the true risks. For example, <a href="https://bch.cbd.int/protocol/risk_assessment/cp-ra-ahteg-2020-01-04-en-2.pdf">gene drives</a> are an early example of biological robotics already in development. <a href="https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/policy-issues/what-is-Genome-Editing">Genome editing</a> tools are used to create gene drive systems that spread through normal pathways of reproduction but are designed to destroy other genes or offspring of a particular sex.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="aerial view of Houston showing the extent of flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441418/original/file-20220118-21-2fdb90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441418/original/file-20220118-21-2fdb90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441418/original/file-20220118-21-2fdb90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441418/original/file-20220118-21-2fdb90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441418/original/file-20220118-21-2fdb90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441418/original/file-20220118-21-2fdb90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441418/original/file-20220118-21-2fdb90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An aerial view of Houston showing the extent of flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Climate change and affluence</h2>
<p>As well as being an existential threat in its own right, climate change is connected to the risks posed by these other technologies. </p>
<p>Both <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abj5593">genetically engineered viruses</a> and gene drives, for example, are being developed to stop the spread of infectious diseases carried by mosquitoes, whose <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-51962100132-7/fulltext">habitats spread</a> on a warming planet. </p>
<p>Once released, however, such biological “robots” may <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2019/03/gene-editing-on-autopilot-what-could-go-wrong/">evolve capabilities</a> beyond our ability to control them. Even a few misadventures that reduce biodiversity could provoke <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(19)30113-5/fulltext">social collapse</a> and conflict.</p>
<p>Similarly, it’s possible to imagine the effects of climate change causing concentrated chemical waste to escape confinement. Meanwhile, highly dispersed toxic chemicals can be concentrated by storms, picked up by floodwaters and distributed into rivers and estuaries. </p>
<p>The result could be the despoiling of agricultural land and fresh water sources, displacing populations and creating “chemical refugees”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-been-75-years-since-hiroshima-yet-the-threat-of-nuclear-war-persists-144030">It's been 75 years since Hiroshima, yet the threat of nuclear war persists</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Resetting the clock</h2>
<p>Given that the Doomsday Clock has been ticking for 75 years, with myriad other <a href="https://scientistswarning.forestry.oregonstate.edu/journal-articles-related-scientists-warning">environmental warnings from scientists</a> in that time, what of humanity’s ability to imagine and strive for a different future? </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="J. Robert Oppenheimer in 1946" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441420/original/file-20220118-23-nwqrmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441420/original/file-20220118-23-nwqrmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441420/original/file-20220118-23-nwqrmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441420/original/file-20220118-23-nwqrmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441420/original/file-20220118-23-nwqrmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441420/original/file-20220118-23-nwqrmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441420/original/file-20220118-23-nwqrmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">J. Robert Oppenheimer in 1946.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Part of the problem lies in the role of science itself. While it helps us understand the risks of technological progress, it also drives that process in the first place. And scientists are people, too – part of the same cultural and political processes that influence everyone.</p>
<p>J. Robert Oppenheimer – the “father of the atomic bomb” – <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00007996">described</a> this vulnerability of scientists to manipulation, and to their own naivete, ambition and greed, in 1947:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humour, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If the bomb was how physicists came to know sin, then perhaps those other existential threats that are the product of our addiction to technology and consumption are how others come to know it, too.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the interrelated nature of these threats is what the Doomsday Clock exists to remind us of.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175049/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack Heinemann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Doomsday Clock has never before been as close to midnight as it is now. There is scant hope of it winding back on its 75th anniversary.Jack Heinemann, Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics, University of CanterburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1686522021-09-27T01:00:07Z2021-09-27T01:00:07ZWith the AUKUS alliance confronting China, New Zealand should ramp up its anti-nuclear diplomacy<p>New Zealand might not be part of the recently revealed security agreement between the US, Britain and Australia (<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/09/15/remarks-by-president-biden-prime-minister-morrison-of-australia-and-prime-minister-johnson-of-the-united-kingdom-announcing-the-creation-of-aukus/">AUKUS</a>), but it certainly can’t avoid the diplomatic and strategic fallout.</p>
<p>Under the pact, Australia stands to gain nuclear-powered submarine capability, with the US seeking greater <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/16/u-s-seeking-basing-in-australia-after-submarine-deal/">military basing rights</a> in the region. ASEAN allies have had to be <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Indo-Pacific/Australia-seeks-to-calm-ASEAN-nerves-over-AUKUS-nuclear-weapons">reassured</a> over fears the region is being nuclearised. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, China and Russia both reacted negatively to the AUKUS arrangement. France, which lost out on a lucrative submarine contract with Australia, felt <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/18/french-recall-of-ambassadors-indicates-extent-of-anger-over-aukus-rift">betrayed and offended</a>.</p>
<p>But behind the shifting strategic priorities the new agreement represents – specifically, the rise of an “Indo-Pacific” security focus aimed at containing China – lies a nuclear threat that is growing.</p>
<p>Already there have been <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/aukus-australia-nuclear-target-china-b1921649.html">warnings from China</a> that AUKUS could put Australia in the atomic cross-hairs. Of course, it probably already was, with the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-23/cia-document-says-nt-spy-base-could-be-a-target/8205432">Pine Gap</a> intelligence facility a likely target.</p>
<p>While New Zealand’s <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1987/0086/latest/DLM115116.html">nuclear-free status</a> makes it a less obvious target, it is an integral part of the Five Eyes intelligence network. Whether that would make the Waihopai spy base an attractive target in a nuclear conflict is known only to the country’s potential enemies.</p>
<h2>100 seconds to midnight</h2>
<p>What we do know, however, is that nuclear catastrophe remains a very real possibility. According to the so-called <a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/">Doomsday Clock</a>, it is currently 100 seconds to midnight — humanity’s extinction point should some or all of the planet’s <a href="https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/">13,100</a> nuclear warheads be launched.</p>
<p>The US and Russia account for most of these, with <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/NewSTART#:%7E:text=that%C2%A0capped%20accountable%20deployed%20strategic%20nuclear%20warheads%20and%20bombs%20at%C2%A01%2C550%2C">1,550</a> many of these deployed on <a href="https://uploads.fas.org/2014/05/Brief2017_GWU_2s.pdf">high alert</a> (meaning they can be fired within 15 minutes of an order) and thousands more stockpiled. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-aukus-pact-born-in-secrecy-will-have-huge-implications-for-australia-and-the-region-168065">The AUKUS pact, born in secrecy, will have huge implications for Australia and the region</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The other members of the “nuclear club” – France, Britain, Israel, India, North Korea, Pakistan and China – are <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat">estimated to possess</a> over 1,000 more.</p>
<p>Most of these warheads are much larger than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. US, Russian and Chinese investment in the development of a new generation of hypersonic missiles has raised fears of a <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/hypersonic-missiles-a-new-arms-race/">new arms race</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1442158284564172800"}"></div></p>
<h2>The Trump legacy</h2>
<p>From New Zealand’s point of view, this is more than disappointing. Having gone nuclear free in the 1980s, it worked hard to export the policy and <a href="https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/peace-rights-and-security/disarmament/#bookmark2">promote disarmament</a>. The high-tide was in 2017 when 122 countries signed the UN’s <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/tpnw/">Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons</a>.</p>
<p>But the nine nuclear-capable countries simply shrugged. The Trump administration even <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-22/un-nuclear-weapons-ban-no-support-from-usa-russia-china/13084348">wrote to the signatories</a> to say they had made “a strategic error” that “turns back the clock on verification and disarmament” and urged them to rescind their ratification.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump then began popping rivets out of the international frameworks keeping the threat of nuclear war in check. He quit the <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-09/news/us-completes-inf-treaty-withdrawal">Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty</a> (INF), which prohibited short- to medium-range nukes in Europe, and <a href="https://www.nti.org/learn/treaties-and-regimes/treaty-on-open-skies/">the Open Skies agreement</a>, which allowed flights through national air space to monitor compliance.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-southeast-asia-so-concerned-about-aukus-and-australias-plans-for-nuclear-submarines-168260">Why is southeast Asia so concerned about AUKUS and Australia's plans for nuclear submarines?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>He also quit the multi-national agreement restricting Iran’s nuclear programme (despite Iran’s compliance) and failed to denuclearise North Korea, despite much fanfare. The bilateral <a href="https://www.state.gov/new-start/">START</a> agreement limiting US and Russian nukes survived, but China rebuffed Trump’s idea of a <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/06/02/asia-pacific/us-donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-arms-control-china/">trilateral nuclear pact</a>.</p>
<p>Nor is the clock ticking backwards with Joe Biden in the White House. Although he <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/03/us-extends-new-start-nuclear-arms-control-agreement-with-russia.html">extended</a> START, the Iran deal hasn’t been resurrected and there’s been no breakthrough with a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58540915">still provocative</a> North Korea.</p>
<p>Both the INF and the Open Skies agreements lie dormant, and the AUKUS pact has probably seen US-Chinese relations hit a new low.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1440791401709518852"}"></div></p>
<h2>Time for renewed action</h2>
<p>While it makes sense for New Zealand to maintain and promote its nuclear-free policy, it must also be pragmatic about reducing tension and risk, particularly in its own region. Being outside the AUKUS agreement and being on good terms with China is a good start.</p>
<p>Not being a nuclear state might mean New Zealand lacks clout or credibility in such a process. But the other jilted ally outside the AUKUS relationship, France, is both a nuclear power and has strong interests in the region.</p>
<p>Like China, France sits outside the main framework of US-Russia nuclear regulation. Now may well be the time for France to turn its anger over the AUKUS deal into genuine leadership and encourage China into a rules-based system. This is where New Zealand could help. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-aukus-russia-sees-a-potential-threat-and-an-opportunity-to-market-its-own-submarines-168374">After AUKUS, Russia sees a potential threat — and an opportunity to market its own submarines</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The <a href="https://www.christchurchcall.com/">Christchurch Call</a> initiative, led by Jacinda Ardern and French president Emmanuel Macron after the 2019 terrorist attack, shows New Zealand and France can cooperate well. Now may be the chance to go one step further, where the country that went nuclear free works with the country that bombed the Rainbow Warrior, and together start to talk to China. </p>
<p>This would involve discussions about weapons verification and safety measures in the Indo-Pacific region, including what kinds of thresholds might apply and on what terms nuclear parity might be established and reduced. </p>
<p>Such an initiative might be difficult and slow — and for many hard to swallow. But New Zealand has the potential to be an honest broker, and has a voice that just might be heard above the ticking of that clock. </p>
<p>As UN Secretary General António Guterres <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2021/09/21/humanity-on-the-edge-of-abyss-guterres-and-biden-focus-on-climate-change-at-un-assembly">warned</a> only last week: “We are on the edge of an abyss and moving in the wrong direction. Our world has never been more threatened or more divided.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168652/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I was working on the Rainbow Warrior when it was blown up by the French. I helped paint it, before the explosions. </span></em></p>With the recent AUKUS agreement increasing tensions in the Indo-Pacific region, the time is right for nuclear-free New Zealand to take a lead.Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1002102018-07-26T13:18:27Z2018-07-26T13:18:27ZPantheism and how it could offer a new approach to preserving the planet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229440/original/file-20180726-106496-e61tgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-practices-yoga-meditates-on-mountain-688367407?src=ofhtueHHC52Evo8l23nGPw-1-94">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The scientists responsible for the “doomsday clock” <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-42823734">moved it 30 seconds closer</a> to midnight – the symbolic point of total catastrophe for humanity and the planet – at the beginning of 2018. The minute hand now hovers ominously at two minutes to 12, the closest point it has ever been (matching the previous peak of 1953 – the height of the Cold War). </p>
<p>This judgement is a reflection of the multiple threats we face as a species, the most urgent being nuclear war and <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/climate-change-27">climate change</a>. The former has loomed over humanity for decades. But the latter emergency has only become apparent relatively recently (to the extent that some people and powers even deny that it is a problem). Yet the scientific consensus is clear and alarming. Unless we manage to limit global warming this century to 2°C, then we are in devastating, civilisation threatening trouble. </p>
<p>We’ll need many things to help combat this emergency: technological innovation and scientific and engineering advances which allow us to harness renewable energies. It will also require new patterns of working and living in more sustainable ways. And I think we will also need something that is both subtler and yet perhaps more profound than these revolutions: a new vision of nature itself.</p>
<p>Over the past few centuries, various perspectives on nature have dominated public discourse – generally to the detriment of the environment. The first is the view that humankind has “dominion” over the Earth – that we rule over the planet in some consequential sense. This in itself is not necessarily problematic. It is conceivable that this could be aligned with an ethos of responsible and careful stewardship. But this “dominion” perspective has been widely allied with a mechanistic view of nature that views it as devoid of any intrinsic worth, identity, and purpose beyond its instrumental value to human beings. </p>
<p>The result is a dominant ideology which regards the natural world primarily as a resource that humans are free to plunder at will. This perspective has surely played a pivotal role in our planetary emergency. </p>
<p>But although much damage has already been done, I still believe we could redeem ourselves and set our relationship on a better path if we could develop an alternative vision – of which many can be found across human history and culture. </p>
<p>I’ve recently encountered a wealth of these through my research, which focuses on “untranslatable” words which relate to well-being. Such words are significant, as they represent ideas and practices which have been overlooked or under-appreciated in one’s own culture or time period, but have been recognised by another culture or era. These include visions of nature which have long been neglected in favour of the dominant ideology outlined above. A case in point is the idea of “natura naturans”.</p>
<h2>Natura naturans</h2>
<p>Albert Einstein was once asked whether he believed in God, and <a href="http://www.einsteinandreligion.com/spinoza.html">replied</a>: “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists – not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.” </p>
<p><a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/">Baruch Spinoza</a>, born in Amsterdam in 1632, was a pioneer of rationalism and helped lay the foundations for <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Enlightenment-European-history">the Enlightenment</a>. He was a controversial figure in his day – with his works placed on the Catholic Church’s List of Prohibited Books – mainly because he was accused by critics of promulgating atheism. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229444/original/file-20180726-106524-73pkdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229444/original/file-20180726-106524-73pkdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229444/original/file-20180726-106524-73pkdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229444/original/file-20180726-106524-73pkdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229444/original/file-20180726-106524-73pkdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229444/original/file-20180726-106524-73pkdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229444/original/file-20180726-106524-73pkdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Doomsday clock is ticking…</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/doomsday-clock-436767811?src=niO7DLmSt-yz2HXxvcKyxA-1-0">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But his philosophy was more nuanced than simply being a direct rejection of the sacred. Rather, he is now seen as one of the first modern advocates of a perspective known as pantheism. This is the idea that God and the cosmos are indivisible – one and the same. To explain this idea, he deployed the Latin phrase “natura naturans” – nature naturing. God is the dynamic process and manifestation of creation itself, nature unfurling in all its glory.</p>
<p>Since then, many thinkers have aligned themselves with a pantheistic perspective, even if many have dispensed with the notion of a theistic deity. In this modern sense of the term, the cosmos itself is regarded as sacred or precious in some way, as per Einstein’s reference to “the orderly harmony of what exists”. </p>
<p>Many contemporary scientists and philosophers share this view. They may not believe in God, per se, but the awe the universe inspires in them does appear to come close to religious devotion. For instance, the prominent atheist Richard Dawkins has <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/atheism/people/dawkins.shtml">spoken approvingly</a> of “Einstein’s God”, which he describes as “the laws of nature which are so deeply mysterious that they inspire a feeling of reverence”. </p>
<p>This vision of nature as sacred – which seems to have the potential to appeal to all people, religious and nonreligious alike – may be just what is needed if we are to preserve this planet, our one and only home in the cosmos.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100210/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Lomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A natural view of the world appealed to Albert Einstein.Tim Lomas, Lecturer in Positive Psychology, University of East LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/906392018-01-25T15:12:33Z2018-01-25T15:12:33ZHow the Doomsday Clock could help trigger the armageddon it warns of<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203403/original/file-20180125-107946-1cksive.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An inaccurate harbinger of doom.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/doomsday-clock-436767811?src=cykiA-qCkDZnTG3ijoN4jg-1-0">HE68/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As of Thursday January 25, 2018, the time on The <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-doomsday-clock-and-why-should-we-keep-track-of-the-time-71990">Doomsday Clock</a> stands at two minutes to midnight, 30 seconds closer to armageddon than its previous setting of <a href="https://theconversation.com/doomsday-clock-moves-closer-to-midnight-but-can-we-really-predict-the-end-of-the-world-36632">two and a half minutes to in January 2017</a>. In fact, this is the nearest the clock has predicted that the world is to nuclear war since 1953, when it was set to 11.58pm in light of the <a href="https://thebulletin.org/timeline">US pursuit of the hydrogen bomb</a>.</p>
<p>The decision to change the clock’s time follows an extremely unsettling year in global politics. Obscene threats of nuclear annihilation pass on a seemingly monthly basis, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/16/north-korea-scoffs-at-trump-nuclear-button-tweet-says-it-was-the-spasm-of-a-lunatic.html">between Trump and Kim-Jong Un</a>. The climate crisis accelerates further <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-will-cross-the-climate-danger-threshold-by-2036/">beyond our effective control</a>. In the past week alone, Western generals have warned of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/22/russia-is-biggest-threat-since-cold-war-says-head-of-british-army">looming war with Russia</a>. </p>
<p>In such a climate, the clock, which was first set in 1947 is an ominous reminder of the global threat of nuclear war. It is a symbol of humanity’s proximity to global catastrophe – represented by midnight on the analogue face. </p>
<p>It is maintained by <a href="https://thebulletin.org">The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists</a>, a non-profit research organisation which emerged from the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/the-manhattan-project">Manhattan Project</a>. The bulletin publishes a journal and aims to bring together scientists, policymakers and activists, all united by a common concern for the existence of the human race. The journal is a resource of incalculable value, read by scholars, policymakers and concerned citizens alike. For six decades it has published sober and nuanced analysis of the many and various planetary threats.</p>
<p>Yet the Doomsday Clock, however well intentioned its custodians, undermines the bulletin’s <a href="https://thebulletin.org/background-and-mission-1945-2018">stated mission</a> to put “issues and events into context”. This is why it should be retired.</p>
<h2>Countdown to armageddon?</h2>
<p>The bad news rolls in ad infinitum. The dangers are real and tangible. It would simply be remiss to accuse the bulletin of scaremongering, but the Doomsday Clock is an increasingly inadequate tool for raising public and political awareness of the most pressing global challenges. It may even be dangerous.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jCnWPbn-ZKo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The crux of the problem is that the clock – or indeed any clock -– is an exceedingly poor metaphor for the level of global threat. Its “time” is devoid of any real meaning. It was only initially set at seven minutes to midnight, because this “<a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clockwork8052">looked good to the eye</a>” of the artist who drew it. </p>
<p>More importantly, it strongly implies that history tends towards inevitable disaster. While the bulletin maintains that it is not aiming to predict catastrophe, prediction is implicit in its visualisation. We have progressed towards the apocalypse by five figurative minutes since the clock was first set at seven minutes to midnight in 1947, even though the hands were <a href="https://thebulletin.org/timeline">temporarily moved backwards</a> under the more optimistic global outlook of the 1990s.</p>
<h2>Out of time</h2>
<p>Is there any more powerful reminder of human futility and helplessness than the inexorable march of time? The clock contributes to despair and fatalism, in the face of complex and urgent political problems, encouraging generalised panic. </p>
<p>These problems demand active struggle, and as environmentalist George Monbiot <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/16/saving-the-world-promise-not-fear-nature-environmentalism">cautioned three years ago</a>, despair breeds defeat. A popular Google search wonders “what happens when the Doomsday Clock hits midnight”. This suggests that, in the popular imagination, the clock has developed causal powers of its own.</p>
<p>It may even contribute to the threats themselves. Scholars of security and international politics have long discussed how geopolitical threats <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1354066196002003001">such as nuclear war</a> are partly <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/anarchy-is-what-states-make-of-it-the-social-construction-of-power-politics/B03BC7C9AAC5211B6DC319C077C1A854">constituted</a> by public discourse and culture. </p>
<p>We already live in a fractious and often militaristic political climate. Each announcement of the clock’s periodic changes is accompanied by a rash of news articles depicting mushroom clouds, stony-faced dictators, and parades of military hardware. Comment threads fill with nationalistic bile. The Daily Star <a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/675383/Doomsday-Clock-ww3-north-korea-kim-jong-un-nuclear-war-apocalypse">responded ahead of the latest change</a> by visualising the effects of a North Korean nuclear strike on London, which as far as we know is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-42162462">currently a physical impossibility</a>.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, a widespread belief that a nation is under threat can create conditions under which preemptive offensive action is politically feasible and publicly acceptable, exacerbating the likelihood of conflict. The bulletin is normally a voice of reason rising over the din. But through the clock, it unwittingly contributes to these increasingly fragile conditions.</p>
<p>Maybe the Doomsday Clock was a more apt metaphor during the Cold War – an era of hair-triggers, false alarms, and <a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/09/mf-deadhand/">automatic missile launch systems</a>, when Europe was, in a very real sense, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD0GbMDSW4Y">minutes away</a> from annihilation at all times. Maybe it really did induce national leaders to step back from the brink of Armageddon. And just maybe the clock’s keepers gain some small comfort, a sense of control over humanity’s collective fate, from the ritualistic moving of its terrible hands. </p>
<p>But while the clock may be a striking brand, it is not fit for purpose. Scholarly and scientific outreach must adapt to today’s political realities. The venerable bulletin must continue its mission – but it should call time on the Doomsday Clock.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90639/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Vaughan receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and is part of the British International Studies Association. He is a member of the Labour Party.</span></em></p>As it moves to two minutes to midnight, the Doomsday Clock must be stopped.Tom Vaughan, PhD Researcher, Aberystwyth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/719902017-01-27T06:14:44Z2017-01-27T06:14:44ZWhat is the Doomsday Clock and why should we keep track of the time?<p>It made headlines recently when the <a href="http://thebulletin.org/press-release/board-moves-clock-ahead10433">Doomsday Clock</a> was shifted from three minutes to midnight to a new setting of two and a half minutes to midnight. </p>
<p>That is the nearest the clock has been to midnight for more than fifty years. The body responsible for the clock said </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It should be an urgent warning to world leaders. </p>
<p>The idea of a Doomsday Clock was conceived by the editorial staff of the <a href="http://thebulletin.org/">Bulletin of Atomic Scientists</a>, which was <a href="http://thebulletin.org/background-and-mission-1945-2016">founded by many of the scientists</a> who worked on the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Manhattan-Project">Manhattan Project</a>. </p>
<p>When that publication graduated from being an internal newsletter among the nuclear science community to being a formal magazine in 1947, the clock appeared on the cover. The magazine’s founders said the clock symbolised </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the urgency of the nuclear dangers that [we] – and the broader scientific community – are trying to convey to the public and political leaders around the world. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The clock was set at <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/1947">seven minutes to midnight</a>. Two years later, with the news that a nuclear weapon had been tested by the USSR, the communist state centred on modern Russia, the clock was moved to <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/1949">11.57</a>. </p>
<p>In 1953, the USA first tested the hydrogen bomb, a fusion weapon much more powerful than the fission bombs that had destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The USSR followed a few months later and the clock was advanced to <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/1953">11.58</a> with a warning there was a real chance that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Then there was a period of modest progress. It gradually became apparent that the new weapons were so powerful that only a deranged leader would consider using them against a similarly armed enemy, given the inevitability of catastrophic retaliation. </p>
<p>In 1963, after they had been continuously testing more and more deadly weapons, the USA and the USSR signed the <a href="https://www.state.gov/t/isn/4797.htm">Partial Test Ban Treaty</a>, which prohibited atmospheric testing. The <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/1963">clock was moved back to 11.48</a>. </p>
<p>It was a false dawn. The two super-powers simply shifted their testing of new weapons to underground facilities, while other countries such as Britain, France and China developed their own nuclear arsenals. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Doomsday Clock was created in response to the development of nuclear weapons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The clock gradually moved closer and closer to midnight until the mid-1980s when it stood at <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/1984">11.57</a>. Then Mikhail Gorbachev assumed the leadership of the USSR and began a series of negotiations to ease tensions and reduce the risk of nuclear war. </p>
<p>The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 effectively marked the end of the so-called Cold War between communism and capitalism. The subsequent collapse of the USSR led to large reductions in the nuclear arsenals, and by 1991 the clock had moved back to <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/1991">11.43</a>. </p>
<p>Once again, there were optimistic hopes of an era of peace and an end to the threat of nuclear weapons. It was not to be. The political system in the US made it almost impossible to scale back arms production. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty</a>, negotiated in the 1970s, aimed to prevent the spread of weapons beyond the five nations that had already acquired them. But those countries did not implement their promise to disarm, so inevitably other nations decided that they would be more secure if they had nuclear weapons: India, Pakistan and Israel. The clock moved forward again year by year, reaching <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/2002">11.53</a> by 2002. </p>
<h2>New threats</h2>
<p>Since then, the managers of the Doomsday Clock have added new threats to the original fear of nuclear war. In 2007, they said “climate change also presents a dire challenge to humanity” and <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/2007">advanced the clock to 11.55</a>. </p>
<p>More recent annual reports have <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/2015">warned that</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>international leaders are failing to perform their most important duty – ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The change should be welcomed. Even if nuclear weapons did not exist, climate change and the accelerating loss of biodiversity are serious threats. Damage to ecosystems is already taking place; climate change is causing loss of life and property, as well as affecting natural systems. </p>
<p>At the same time, the nations with nuclear weapons are still testing new devices and more sophisticated delivery systems. The number of weapons has dropped from its peak of over 60,000 to about 10,000. But that is still enough firepower to wipe out civilisation several times over. </p>
<p>And there are new players, including North Korea and perhaps Iran. As the <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/2017">2017 report said</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is two and a half minutes to midnight, the Clock is ticking, global danger looms. Wise public officials should act immediately, guiding humanity away from the brink. If they do not, wise citizens must step forward and lead the way.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This really is a call to arms and deserves more attention from our media.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71990/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Lowe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s two and a half minutes to midnight according to the Doomsday Clock. But what is the clock and why should we pay attention?Ian Lowe, Emeritus Professor, School of Science, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/415972015-05-11T03:01:45Z2015-05-11T03:01:45ZWith jihadists among us, is IS more of a threat than communism was?<blockquote>
<p>True, it has been called, by some, a religion. But it is a religion of hatred; it derives from the darkest recesses of the human mind.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is not Julie Bishop’s recent assessment of the variety of Islam espoused by Islamic State (IS or <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-isis-isil-islamic-state-or-daesh-40838">ISIS</a>), but rather Robert Menzies <a href="http://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1951-robert-menzies">describing communism</a> in 1951. With the threats of Nazism and Japanese imperialism defeated, Menzies tried to galvanise the nation against the newest perceived security threat - international communism - through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_referendum,_1951">a referendum</a> that would ban Australia’s Communist Party. The referendum failed.</p>
<p>Once the domestic threat was “reds under the beds”; today it is jihadists in our midst. <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/timeline-in-vic-counter-terror-raids/story-e6frfku9-1227348142009">Counter-terrorism raids</a> in the suburbs, the latest <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-10/greenvale-terrorism-raid3a/6458724">in Melbourne on Friday</a>, and allegations of <a href="http://www.9news.com.au/national/2015/05/08/15/11/police-conduct-raids-in-melbourne-s-northern-suburbs">imminent attacks</a> reinforce the sense of threat.</p>
<p>Like the contemporary threat of radical jihadist Islam, which was the topic of the foreign minister’s <a href="http://foreignminister.gov.au/speeches/Pages/2015/jb_sp_150427.aspx?ministerid=4">recent speech</a> to the Sydney Institute, communism was seen during the Cold War as both an external and internal threat. Communism, it was said, was externally driven by the Soviet Union and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/16/weekinreview/the-nation-fifth-column-the-evil-that-lurks-in-the-enemy-within.html">domestically sustained by a shadowy cadre</a> of radicalised individuals who rejected the political status quo. </p>
<p>Not unlike contemporary concerns about the seemingly universalist aspirations of IS, communism’s internationalist leanings were also viewed as a direct threat to liberalism’s own claims to global ideological hegemony.</p>
<p>Yet for Julie Bishop, the Cold War balance of terror, with the hands of the <a href="http://thebulletin.org/timeline">Doomsday Clock</a> locked at two minutes to midnight, was not as dangerous as the ragtag <a href="https://theconversation.com/islamic-state-theoreticians-have-honed-plans-for-battle-and-a-state-40813">caliphate of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi</a>. This was, she declared:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a pernicious force that could, if left unchecked, wield great global power that would threaten the very existence of nation states.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At its most literal level, this claim is unsustainable. The military planners of the West during the Cold War would have wept for joy if their strategic focus could have switched from the USSR, bristling with a nuclear arsenal, to a Middle Eastern insurgency struggling to hold a handful of cities in a region completely destabilised by earlier foreign incursions and civil war.</p>
<h2>Is sovereign nations’ future at risk?</h2>
<p>But sheer military capacity was not really what Bishop was talking about. Her real concern is the threat that IS poses not to any particular nation, but to the very notion of national sovereignty. </p>
<p>In her speech, Bishop argued that the problem is not that IS is militarily more dangerous than the Soviet Union (it clearly is not). Rather, she argued that its transnational, seemingly de-territorialised nature poses a deeper threat to the entire state system.</p>
<p>Following common usage, Bishop declared this system, based on the sanctity of the nation state’s sovereignty within internationally recognised borders, to be “Westphalian”, and hallowed by 400 years of history. By this she presumably meant Western history, given that the ceaselessly expanding global empires of Europe hardly deferred to indigenous notions of sovereignty prior to World War Two.</p>
<p>In fact, the current state system has very little to do with the substance of the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/641170/Peace-of-Westphalia">treaties signed in Münster and Osnabrück</a> in 1648. The principle of the sanctity of the nation state’s sovereignty within its own borders is a thoroughly modern convention. It has developed for the most part for eminently sensible reasons. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, this principle has been more often honoured in the breach than in the observance. As anyone who has watched recent great power intervention in Iraq, Libya and Ukraine can attest, the principle of the sanctity of the sovereign state has already been placed under enormous strain – and not by IS.</p>
<p>Focusing not on the threat that some states pose to the sovereignty of other states, Bishop instead spoke at length about “malevolent non-state actors” operating under the rubric of “global terrorism”. Notwithstanding the fact that IS really is malevolent and terrorist, on the finer point of whether it actually represents a threat to the contemporary “Westphalian” system, Bishop’s analysis slightly misses the point. </p>
<p>Given that its first order of business has been to carve out a territorial state for which it seeks recognition, IS is hardly post-“Westphalian” in its outlook. ISIS may represent a geostrategic threat to stability in the Middle East and North Africa, but this threat is not necessarily a systemic one.</p>
<h2>Islamic State needs failed states to survive</h2>
<p>This is not to undervalue the nature of the challenge posed by IS. Although more Australians continue to be killed by bee stings, the danger posed by jihadists is very real in some countries. With IS in Syria, Iraq and Libya, now having been joined by <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-virtual-significance-of-boko-harams-pledge-of-allegiance-to-isis-38690">Boko Haram</a> in Nigeria, and with <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenya-attack-al-shabaabs-violent-radicalism-cant-be-tackled-by-force-alone-39714">al-Shabaab</a> in Somalia currently <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-global-war-for-relevance-can-al-qaeda-reclaim-the-jihadi-crown-39430">shifting its allegiances from al-Qaeda</a> to the caliphate, IS certainly represents the most coherent militant Islamist movement in the Middle East and North Africa.</p>
<p>Looking at this list of nations, however, it becomes clear that the danger is most acute in states where central governments are at their weakest. In this sense, Bishop has mistaken cause for effect. Failed or weak states have offered space for Islamic State and other militant jihadis.</p>
<p>Islamic State is not, however, the reason these states have failed. Where the “Westphalian” state is strong, the Caliphate has no hold. It has recourse only to atrocities that, while terrifying and shocking, do not pose a systemic threat.</p>
<p>Interestingly, three of the states where IS is most entrenched, namely Iraq, Libya and Syria, were until recently firmly, indeed ruthlessly, controlled by (more or less) secular dictators: Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad (still technically in office) and Muammar al-Gaddafi (ostensibly the most pious of the three). Often for good reason, all of them were unpopular with the Western great powers. Crucially, however, the erosion of the sovereignty of each of these by large powers has played a significant role in weakening the hold of the state over its territories.</p>
<p>This is hardly in keeping with the notion of “Westphalian” sovereignty to which Bishop appealed. When these states were strong, radical Islamists could not find a foothold. This is not for want of trying, as Hafez al-Assad’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Hama_massacre">massacre of the Muslim Brotherhood</a> in Syria in 1982 demonstrates.</p>
<p>In concluding her speech, Bishop stressed the importance of tight security measures, which she sees as necessary to protect nation states from transnational jihadis. This might pay a minor dividend in apprehending radicalised individuals domestically. </p>
<p>In terms of Bishop’s broader point about the international state system, however, it seems that the best way to protect nation states from ISIS or other forms of terrorism is by respecting the “Westphalian” principle of the sovereignty of nation states. In this way, unpalatable strong states might not be transformed into even more unpalatable failed states.</p>
<p>Interestingly, Bishop’s speech offered a small sign that this message might be breaking through. Two small references showed that Australia has perhaps begun to understand that ignoring national sovereignty and pursuing “regime change” is not the most productive way to deal with non-liberal polities. Whereas a few short years ago all signs pointed to an impending Western invasion of Iran, Bishop approvingly referred twice to the insights <a href="https://theconversation.com/ms-bishop-goes-to-tehran-a-story-of-good-news-and-bad-news-40463">she had garnered</a> from Australia’s apparent newest Middle Eastern ally, Iran. During the Cold War, such overtures might have been called <a href="http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/detente.htm">détente</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Fitzpatrick is a member of the ALP.</span></em></p>Dire government warnings and counter-terrorism raids in our suburbs paint a picture of the worst threat Western nations have ever faced. A little historical perspective is in order.Matt Fitzpatrick, Associate Professor in International History, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/366322015-01-23T06:25:36Z2015-01-23T06:25:36ZDoomsday Clock moves closer to midnight, but can we really predict the end of the world?<p>The second hand of the Doomsday Clock is now only three minutes to midnight. This is the closest to apocalypse we have come since 1984 – the coldest of Cold War years, just a year after <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/02/nato-war-game-nuclear-disaster">Able Archer</a>, <a href="http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/09/dayintech_0926">the Petrov incident</a> and <a href="http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/speech-3409">Reagan’s “evil empire” speech</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://thebulletin.org/">Bulletin of Atomic Scientists</a>, which controls the clock, said the time was changed on January 22 because of the <a href="http://thebulletin.org/press-release/%E2%80%9Cdoomsday-clock%E2%80%9D-minute-hand-move-again7943">threat posed by both climate change and nuclear weapons</a>. Increased international tensions, a faltering of the disarmament process, upgrades to nuclear arsenals and increasing proliferation, as well as a lack of progress on curbing emissions make the probability of global catastrophe “very high”.</p>
<p>A sceptical journalist pointed out that the bulletin has been moving the clock periodically for 68 years, yet the world hasn’t ended so far, so “why believe it this time?”</p>
<p>The panel members’ response was to point out that they are “not in the business of forecasting” so much as warning the world of its plight. In this case the clock can be viewed as a form of probabilistic rhetoric.</p>
<h2>Rolling the dice</h2>
<p>How many times do you need to roll a dice and not get a six until you start suspecting it is loaded? How many times do you need to roll a loaded dice before you have a sense of how loaded it is? Just because something does not happen, doesn’t mean it’s not informative.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69809/original/image-20150122-12117-l9cjaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69809/original/image-20150122-12117-l9cjaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69809/original/image-20150122-12117-l9cjaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69809/original/image-20150122-12117-l9cjaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69809/original/image-20150122-12117-l9cjaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69809/original/image-20150122-12117-l9cjaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69809/original/image-20150122-12117-l9cjaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69809/original/image-20150122-12117-l9cjaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The new clock is red. In case it wasn’t clear enough already.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If we assume there is an unknown probability of nuclear war per year, and every year fate rolls the dice, we can calculate the chance of a given number of years with no nuclear war. We can turn this around to update our estimate of how likely nuclear war is. Back in 1945 we might have been open for almost any risk, but in 2015 the chance of a nuclear war is at least not high. </p>
<p>(For those interested, this <a href="http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/%7Enorman/BBNs/Bayes_rule.htm">Bayesian</a> approach to probability puts the chance of nuclear war at 1.4% per year, with a 95% confidence interval between 0.036%-5.1%.)</p>
<p>However, we know far more about the world than that. We can investigate the number of close calls that have happened – such as the Cuban Missile crisis and the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/russia/closecall/">Norwegian rocket incident</a> – in an attempt to get better estimates. We can analyse the weaknesses of command and control systems, or <a href="http://sethbaum.com/ac/2013_NuclearWar.html">the risk of accidental faults triggering conflict</a>. But even the best analysis of this kind will be limited. The risks are clearly changing over time, and there may be fundamental things we do not know about the world.</p>
<h2>When will the world end?</h2>
<p>How would we actually measure how close we are to the end of the world?</p>
<p>One might imagine having actual data: maybe a wormhole leading to a future date and allowing direct observation of when humanity expires. But <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9506087">if the universe is consistent</a> – which is to say paradoxes cannot occur – knowing this information will not allow us to change the date. The value of any information about the risks we face lies in how they allow us to reduce the risk.</p>
<p>We almost have a literal clock for certain risks. We roughly know the time when the sun will start expanding and make Earth inhospitable. We could set up a timer counting down to impact if we detected an asteroid or comet on its way towards Earth. However, the evolution of the sun is slow and we have good reason to believe the risk of an asteroid impact in the near future is very low: the utility of such clocks is limited.</p>
<p>In the case of earthquakes, supervolcanos or pandemics, the causes start out on a microscopic scale – a stressed mineral grain breaking in a faultline, a mutation in a cell somewhere – and expand exponentially to produce a large event. Here we are dealing with something that is, for all practical purposes, random. These threats must be treated as probabilities: any “clock” would give us a probability estimate.</p>
<p>But the actual <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-five-biggest-threats-to-human-existence-27053">large threats likely to destroy us</a> are dominated by human factors. This implies far tougher kinds of uncertainty. They change over time, they are affected by self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecies (like the Doomsday Clock itself), and the very system of risk changes as technology and society changes. </p>
<p>Here the normal forms of probability estimate are not just inadequate, they are actively misleading. The 1.4% probability per year of nuclear war sounds very exact, yet the estimate is based on a list of potentially suspect assumptions. The chance of at least one of them being wrong is high. It may be better to explicitly acknowledge the uncertainty, compare what we know to an <a href="http://www.existential-risk.org/concept.pdf">acceptable risk of Armageddon</a>, and state the nuclear risk as being “unacceptably high”.</p>
<p>Model uncertainty is always present, but becomes particularly important when dealing with complex systems where we do not know everything going on. Environmental researchers are looking for ecological or climatological tipping points: if we knew the exact boundary we could make an index (a “Doomsday Yardstick”?) telling us how close we are. But <a href="http://www.stockholmresilience.org/21/research/research-programmes/planetary-boundaries.html">the actual approach</a> is more of a considered expert judgement, and more like the hints in the warmer-colder game rather than an actual distance. Again, the benefit lies in trying to move in the right direction rather than measuring something exactly. </p>
<h2>Proper uses of doomsday predictions</h2>
<p>The Doomsday Clock is not a measurement of time, probability or distance. It is a measure of the “strong feeling of urgency” the people who run it have when watching the world-system. </p>
<p>It can be compared to the <a href="http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risks-report-2015">World Economic Forum global risk report</a> that was recently released. This was not a report of the actual risk, but how concerned people are about the risks – the experts might vastly overestimate or underestimate the chance of something happening, and there could be far worse threats out there. Yet it is helpful to compile what concerns people and use it as a start for discussing what we need and are willing to do.</p>
<p>Doomsday predictions are rarely informative, but good ones can be directive: they urge us to fix the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36632/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anders Sandberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The second hand of the Doomsday Clock is now only three minutes to midnight. This is the closest to apocalypse we have come since 1984 – the coldest of Cold War years, just a year after Able Archer, the…Anders Sandberg, James Martin Research Fellow, Future of Humanity Institute & Oxford Martin School, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.