[rad-green] 'The Most Dangerous Situation That Humanity Has Ever Faced': Doomsday Clock Now 100 Seconds to Midnight

*https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/23/most-dangerous-situation-humanity-has-ever-faced-doomsday-clock-now-100-seconds
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/23/most-dangerous-situation-humanity-has-ever-faced-doomsday-clock-now-100-seconds>Common
Dreams          January 23, 2020'The Most Dangerous Situation That Humanity
Has Ever Faced': Doomsday Clock Now 100 Seconds to MidnightCiting the
worsening nuclear threat and inaction on the climate crisis, scientists
issue a historic warning about the risk of global catastrophe.by Jessica
Corbett, staff writer*

[image: 2020 Doomsday Clock]

*The Doomsday Clock reads 100 seconds to midnight—a decision made by the
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists—during an announcement at the National Press
Club in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 23, 2020. (Photo: Eva Hambach/AFP via
Getty Images)*

"The Doomsday Clock now stands at 100 seconds to midnight, the most
dangerous situation that humanity has ever faced. Now is the time to come
together—to unite and to act."

"Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear
war and climate change—that are compounded by a threat multiplier,
cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society's ability to
respond."
—Bulletin of Atomic Scientist

So said Mary Robinson, chair of The Elders
<https://www.theelders.org/who-we-are>, in a statement from the Bulletin of
Atomic Scientists on Thursday announcing a historic update to the clock, a
decades-old symbol for potential global catastrophe.

Robinson, the former president of Ireland and United Nations high
commissioner for human rights, urged world leaders "to join us in 2020 as
we work to pull humanity back from the brink."

After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the Bulletin was
founded <https://thebulletin.org/about-us/> by University of Chicago
scientists who had been involved with the Manhattan Project. Two years
later, the group introduced
<https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-statements/> the Doomsday
Clock, set at seven minutes to midnight. Midnight represented potential
apocalypse based on global nuclear dangers—the closer the hands are to
midnight, the higher the threat.

Since 1947, the clock's hands have moved both closer to and further from
midnight, reaching 17 minutes to midnight in 1991. In 2018, the hands hit
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/25/doomsday-clock-now-2-minutes-midnight-trump-drives-nuclear-and-climate-threats>
two
minutes to midnight for the first time since 1953, after the United States
and the Soviet Union tested thermonuclear weapons. Last year, the clock
stayed
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/24/welcome-new-abnormal-apocalypse-still-looms-doomsday-clock-stays-2-minutes-midnight>
there,
and Bulletin president and CEO Rachel Bronson welcomed the world to "the
new abnormal."

For more than a decade, the Doomsday Clock's setting has reflected the
threat posed by nuclear weaponry as well as the human-caused climate
crisis. The 2020 statement
<https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/#full-statement> explained
that "humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential
dangers—nuclear war and climate change—that are compounded by a threat
multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society's
ability to respond."

"It is 100 seconds to midnight. We are now expressing how close the world
is to catastrophe in seconds—not hours, or even minutes," Bronson said
Thursday. "It is the closest to Doomsday we have ever been in the history
of the Doomsday Clock. We now face a true emergency—an absolutely
unacceptable state of world affairs that has eliminated any margin for
error or further delay."

Along with highlighting growing concerns about how "sophisticated,
technology-propelled propaganda" is undermining global efforts to address
the two key existential threats, this year's statement slammed world
leaders for "not responding appropriately to reduce this threat level and
counteract the hollowing-out of international political institutions,
negotiations, and agreements that aim to contain it."

As the Bulletin put it:

Faced with this daunting threat landscape and a new willingness of
political leaders to reject the negotiations and institutions that can
protect civilization over the long term, the Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists Science and Security Board today moves the Doomsday Clock 20
seconds closer to midnight—closer to apocalypse than ever. In so doing,
board members are explicitly warning leaders and citizens around the world
that the international security situation is now more dangerous than it has
ever been, even at the height of the Cold War.

Referencing "the new abnormal" introduced last year, the 2020 statement
warned, "This dangerous situation remains—and continues to deteriorate."
The Bulletin declared that "the need for emergency action is urgent." On
the nuclear front, global leaders were urged to reinstate treaties, cut
countries' arsenals, limit modernization programs, and "start talks on
cyber warfare, missile defenses, the militarization of space, hypersonic
technology, and the elimination of battlefield nuclear weapons."

More generally, the Bulletin called for "multilateral discussions aimed at
establishing norms of behavior, both domestic and international, that
discourage and penalize the misuse of science," emphasizing that "focused
attention is needed to prevent information technology from undermining
public trust in political institutions, in the media, and in the existence
of objective reality itself."

In terms of climate action, the Bulletin urged all countries remain
committed to the landmark 2015 Paris agreement. The statement noted that
meeting the goals of that accord will require industrialized countries "to
curb emissions rapidly, going beyond their initial, inadequate pledges and
supporting developing countries so they can leapfrog the entrenched, fossil
fuel-intensive patterns."

While the Bulletin broadly encouraged citizens across the globe to pressure
their governments to pursue bold policies to avert climate catastrophe, it
drew specific attention to the United States, pointing out that in November
2019, President Donald Trump fulfilled
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/04/delivering-catastrophic-message-moment-great-urgency-trump-formally-begins-ditching>
his
longtime promise to begin the lengthy process of withdrawing the U.S. from
the Paris agreement.

During a press conference <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXf6ygotBZ4> in
Washington, D.C. to announce the Doomsday Clock update Thursday, former
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed disappointment in global
leaders for failing to address these two crises. Ban, now deputy chair of
The Elders, warned of the dangers of isolationist policies but also framed
the clock's shift as an opportunity for policymakers worldwide to recommit
to multilateralism.

Jerry Brown, the current executive chair of the Bulletin, also spoke at the
press conference Thursday. He criticized Trump for delivering a speech—at
the World Economic Forum's summit for the global elite in Davos,
Switzerland—that called for
<https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/23/davos-2020-climate-scientists-reject-trumps-prophets-of-doom.html>
rejecting
"alarmists" and "perennial prophets of doom," along with their "predictions
of the apocalypse."

Brown, a former Democratic governor of California, also said that U.S.
politicians from both major parties have not adequately worked to combat
the nuclear and climate threats, and decried "vast, deep, and pervasive
complacency" on a societal level.

After summarizing the Bulletin's warnings in a statement Thursday, Brown
concluded: "If there's ever a time to wake up, it's now."

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