The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists set the Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds to midnight. We delve into the meaning and the history of the Doomsday Clock and explores the reasons behind this development.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists recently set the “Doomsday Clock’ to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest ever it has been to the ‘doomsday’. Today we’ll delve into what exactly is this doomsday clock and why it may be important for us to pay attention to it.
In 1947, Starting as just a magazine cover design for the first magazine of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, this ‘doomsday clock’ was conceptualized and developed by artist Martyl Langsdorf. This pure magazine cover design would go on to become perhaps the most important representation of the ‘countdown’ to the existential crises facing this world. In simple words, in popular culture, this doomsday clock represents how close humanity is to utter destruction. It started out as an indication of how close the world is to a full-scale nuclear conflict, and now it has developed to take into account a plethora of existential issues facing this world at the moment.
The scientists of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, move the hands of the clock closer or further away from ‘midnight’ based on the level and intensity of the crises.
Ever since man split the atom, ‘world powers’ have devised new and improved ways of maintaining strategic superiority over each other. The clock to existential threats started running when the first atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War but it wasn’t conceptualized into a ‘doomsday clock’ until 1947. The farthest this clock has been to ‘midnight’ was right after the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the USSR. Arms control measures, especially the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) contributed to this development.
This metaphor has ever since guided the perception of the seriousness of existential threats posing the world.
Before we move further into why the doomsday clock has gotten so close to ‘midnight’, a little about the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists first.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is a non-profit organization developed by the scientists who were working on the Manhattan Project and realized the complete destructive power of the atomic bomb that they were helping to build. The aim of this endeavor was to inform the public about the developments in science and the impact these developments have on humanity. It was born out of the conscience of the scientists who knew that they, in fact, had created a doomsday device. But the first few editions of their Bulletin were just a collection of articles from the scientific community, and it wasn’t until Martyl Langsdorf created the magazine cover that drew much attention from the readers, that the ‘doomsday’ clock was created.
When the scientists drew the minute hand of the clock 89 seconds away from ‘midnight’- it became a clear indication that the world is not very far from ‘utter destruction’. While some may call it an exaggeration, it is still very important to pay attention to what this development is trying to tell us. There is a lesson to be learned from this clock, each time it strikes a time.
Today we are faced with a wide range of existential threats - all the bilateral arms control measures between major nuclear weapons states (US and Russia ) have disintegrated, and new arms control measures seem to be far from a possibility at the moment. Multilateral treaties such as the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) refuse to be reformed to take into account the new global realities and are consistently met with a deadlock. The situation in the Middle East remains precarious with Iran being on the brink of nuclear weapons breakout capability and Israel is keeping a close eye on it. Russia’s war in Ukraine continues to erode its relations with the West even further, reducing the possibility of negotiating any arms control treaty.
Not just nuclear weapons, climate change is another threat looming over humanity's existence. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists believe that the international community has failed to come to tangible conclusions for tackling climate change issues and have failed to make progress on existing commitments. AI is another whole new challenge. Depending on where the AI technologies are being deployed - it can either serve as a boon or a bane for us humans. Nations are diverting AI-powered technologies for military development - basically creating new and improved ways of destruction.
All of these developments have contributed to the moving of this doomsday clock. Whether considered an exaggeration or not, this metaphor serves as an important reminder that the world is in a precarious place at this moment.
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