SPECIAL REPORT: Tick Tock Goes the Doomsday Clock
(The Elders discussing doomsday at Georgetown University on Thursday, January 23. Alexa Asch and Alex Lin, the Caravel)
by Alexa Asch (SFS ‘22) and Alex Lin (SFS ‘23)
On Thursday, January 23, members of The Elders and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists gathered at Georgetown University to discuss doomsday. The panelists included former Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, former Governor of California Jerry Brown, and president of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Rachel Bronson; their discussion followed the release of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ 2020 Doomsday Clock Statement, a yearly adjustment of how close humanity is to cataclysm based on two major issues—climate change and nuclear proliferation. This year, the Bulletin set the clock to “100 seconds until midnight,” closer to midnight than it has ever been set before.
Last year’s announcement set the Doomsday Clock to two minutes before midnight, the closest humanity has come to doomsday since 1953. This year’s announcement, placing the clock “100 seconds to midnight,” beats the old record. (Wikimedia Commons)
“We are living in a more dangerous world than before.”
A common topic of their discussion was time. If midnight on our “clock” is doomsday, the panelists stressed how midnight is only “100 seconds” away, making us closer to doomsday than we have ever been before. In the Bulletin’s statement, they also analogized doomsday to the 2-minute warning of a football game: as the end nears, teams find “newfound vigilance and focus,” using strategy to make every second count. The panelists called for such vigor in in combating doomsday. They want us to treat the situation with urgency. Former UN Secretary General Ban remarked, “We are living in a more dangerous world than before.”
Similarly, Bronson discussed how we are facing aggravated, time-sensitive challenges that must be dealt with before our capacity to resolve them deteriorates completely.
“Somehow we are taught that [nuclear proliferation] has been fixed … It is not fixed.”
Even as the haunting memories of nuclear bunkers, “duck and cover” civil defense films, and the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis become distant chapters in history, the Elders fear the return of the threat of nuclear holocaust. “Somehow we are taught that [nuclear proliferation] has been fixed,” said Robinson. “It is not fixed.”
The last time the Doomsday Clock dipped so low was during the height of the Cold War. In 1953, as the U.S. and U.S.S.R. stockpiled their arsenals of nuclear weapons, humanity felt an impending apocalypse looming closer than perhaps ever before. The clock was set to two minutes to midnight, a mark not to be beaten until now.
After the Cuban Missile Crisis, however, a string of treaties--including the Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963), Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (1982), and the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (1987)--laid the groundwork for de-escalation. In fact, by 1991, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists had set the clock back to a generous 17 minutes before midnight. It has moved closer ever since.
However, as President Trump withdrew from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and as the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) is set to expire next year with no prospects for renewal, the Elders agree that we again have reasons to worry about an all-out nuclear war.
Some scholars have argued for the “nuclear peace theory,” claiming that nuclear deterrence discouraged direct military confrontation between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. and ushered in decades of peace after WWII. Nevertheless, for former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, why the world avoided being bombed to ashes so many times is simple: luck.
Governor Brown agrees, referring to “at least three occassions” where the U.S. and the Soviet Union thought their counterparts had launched hundreds of missiles. By sheer luck, the world came out of these crises unscathed.
The Elders and other experts cite this idea to dispel the “myth” of nuclear deterrence. They believe that, with the threats of miscommunication, unstable nuclear-armed governments, and even transnational terrorist organizations, disarmament is the best -- maybe only -- way to go.
In 1978, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published their first cover story about climate change. They have not stopped talking about it since. What really concerns them is the lack of consensus among global leaders and their lack of initiative to find a solution. Bronson notes that leaders are good at “criticizing what we have and walking away from it, but we need to focus on how we are going to change.”
The panelists propose making climate change a matter of “political survival,” explaining how we need to heighten and strengthen discourse around climate change such that politicians are incentivized, even forced, to act on it. The panelists really seemed to believe that this push can only start with the voices of the youth.
“[Leaders are good at] criticizing what we have and walking away from it, but we need to focus on how we are going to change.”
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists also wants public support for reducing carbon emissions. In their statement, they reported that 60 countries have committed to zero carbon emissions, but those countries’ carbon emissions only make up 11% of the global total.
Carbon emissions are concerning, because carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. When ultraviolet radiation from the sun hits the Earth, it is degraded to infrared radiation and captured by greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, which traps that heat in the Earth’s lower atmosphere. However, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists are not only concerned about carbon dioxide-induced warming: they also expressed concern about protecting rainforests and mitigating global natural disasters like the flooding in India this past year.
“Best of all Possible Worlds”
Governor Brown places blame on a contemporary mindset of denial and complacency for the challenges of nuclear war and climate change. He observes that there is a “taboo” against talking about the apocalypse, and we have fallen into a “ritual of reassurance” where we convince ourselves that all is well. Drawing a parallel between modern society and Voltaire’s Candide, Brown warned against harboring the illusion that we live in the “best of all possible worlds.”
“It is time to wake up,” Brown proclaimed. “It is time to disabuse ourselves of the taboo.”
According to the Democratic politician, journalism isn’t doing much to help either. “The news of the day,” or the coverage of short-term, breaking news and developments, supposedly places a “fundamental obstacle” to public understanding of “larger ideas” such as nuclear war and climate change. Brown implies that a tweet from Trump should not send the nation twittering; instead, we must maintain a holistic perspective and not lose track of what is important.
“It is time to wake up.”
The former Californian governor also scoffed at the modern political climate. Reminiscing Cold War-era disarmament, he lauded Nixon and Reagan’s commitment to cooling U.S.-Soviet tensions, citing Nixon’s overnight stay in the Kremlin. “Can you imagine Obama and Trump doing that?” he asked jokingly. “They’ll be impeached!”
Ban Ki-Moon indirectly corroborated this subtle jab at contemporary politics. He said that “political leaders are often hostages of domestic leadership,” leading to a lack of “global vision.” Drawing from personal experience, Ban thought that world leaders, consumed by power dynamics and re-election at home, would often launch into grandiose rhetoric in front of the UN. “[But] by the time they fly out of JFK airport, they forget everything,” Ban said, eliciting a ripple of laughter through the room.
Despite the grave, looming threat of the apocalypse, the panelists nevertheless found a refuge for hope: the activism of young people. The younger generation very publicly took to the streets in 2019 and called for action against climate change. The Elders believe that these protests have begun to pressuring leaders and disrupting an undesirable status quo.
“Raise your voice … challenge your leaders,” Ban Ki-Moon said to the audience of Georgetown students. “Look beyond yourself. Look beyond your border. Be ready to extend a helping hand.”