Climate change and the nuclear threat are raising concerns about our planet’s future ability to support human life. If we launch a species survival mission, who should go?
Climate modelling in the 1980s offered the first glimpses of what might lie beyond a nuclear war.
Visitors to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima view a large-scale panoramic photograph of the destruction following the 1945 bombing.
Carl Court/Getty Images
The United States and Russia, the two biggest nuclear powers, have no imminent plans for talks on a nuclear deal. That should change, writes a former US diplomat.
In the 1957 worldwide bestseller, Australia is – briefly – the last habitable place on earth, following a nuclear world war. One character asks, as they wait to die: ‘Why did all this happen to us?’
AI isn’t likely to enslave humanity, but it could take over many aspects of our lives.
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From open letters to congressional testimony, some AI leaders have stoked fears that the technology is a direct threat to humanity. The reality is less dramatic but perhaps more insidious.
A glimpse of a post-apocalyptic world.
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Maybe it was a nuclear war, devastating climate change, or a killer virus. But if something caused people to disappear, imagine what would happen afterward.
At 90 seconds to midnight, the Doomsday Clock indicates the level of human-made threats.
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
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.
Germany passed an emergency legislation in July to reopen coal-powered plants in the face of gas shortages.
(AP Photo/Michael Probst)
In Europe, a large-scale war could cause the Baltic Sea to freeze over and severely compromise food security – potentially for decades and even centuries to come.
Bunker tourism in Prague with a display of children in gas masks inside of the Bezovka nuclear bunker.
(J. Rozdilsky)
Cold War-era bunkers in Prague have been repurposed as tourist sites and nightlife venues. With war in Ukraine bringing renewed nuclear threats, could these bunkers revert to their original purpose?
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, stands near a damaged residential building in Irpin, Ukraine, on Sept. 8, 2022.
Genya Savilov/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
Giving Ukraine large amounts of money while not actually declaring war on Russia has various benefits for the US and other countries. Chiefly, it could protect US soldiers and civilians.
Because the west avoided a nuclear war over the Cuban missile crisis it should not be overconfident about Russia’s nuclear threats.
This Russian short-range cruise missile, the Iskander-K, can carry nuclear warheads for several hundred miles.
Russian Defense Ministry Press Service photo via AP
Tactical nuclear weapons were designed to be used on the battlefield rather than for strategic defense, but that doesn’t mean there’s a plausible case for using them.
The west needs to understand the messages coming from Russia, not ignore them.
A man reads an Iranian newspaper with a headline in Farsi that says, ‘The night of the end of the JCPOA,’ or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images
A nuclear nonproliferation expert explains why Iran was always unlikely to return to the 2015 international agreement that limited its nuclear weapon development.