ANALYSIS – Sometimes, as we absorb the news, it feels like it's all doom and gloom. And in many cases, it is. And so also says the ‘Doomsday Clock,' created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists of Chicago (BAS) in 1947.
The clock theoretically indicates how near humanity is to annihilation.
And now, with major wars raging in Europe and the Middle East, the threat of war with China looming, and artificial intelligence (AI) potentially overtaking humans in a short time, it is still set at 90 seconds to midnight, or the end time.
Scientists set the clock based on “existential” risks to Earth and its people, primarily the nuclear threat of Armageddon, but more recently they have added climate change, and highly disruptive technologies such as AI, robotics, and new biotechnology such as gene editing and cloning.
Each year, the BAS decides whether the previous year's events pushed humanity closer to or farther from destruction.
And this year it remains, like last year, the closest it has ever been to midnight in its 75-year history.
“Trends continue to point ominously towards global catastrophe,” said Rachel Bronson, president, and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “The war in Ukraine poses an ever-present risk of nuclear escalation, and the October 7 attack in Israel and war in Gaza provides further illustration of the horrors of modern war, even without nuclear escalation.”
The Bulletin also said that China, Russia, and the U.S. were all spending huge sums to “expand or modernize their nuclear arsenals” – which added to the “ever-present danger of nuclear war through mistake or miscalculation.”
As Time reported:
In their assessment for 2024, the Bulletin pointed to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Russia's withdrawal from arms agreements, the war in Gaza, and the record-breaking heat of 2023. Scientists also highlighted the rise of artificial intelligence as a disruptive force, acknowledging its potential to amplify corruption and disinformation.
“Make no mistake: resetting the Clock at 90 seconds to midnight is not an indication that the world is stable,” Bronson said. “Quite the opposite. It's urgent for governments and communities around the world to act.
In the past decade, fears of a nuclear war have also been ramped up by Kim Jong-Un, leader of North Korea. He has boasted of testing nuclear-capable missiles that could reach the United States. Experts assess that it could have 50 to 60 nuclear warheads by now.
And then there is the rapidly rising risk of the Iranian terror regime finally achieving nuclear breakout and threatening a direct, potentially nuclear war against Israel.
The clock idea began in 1945, when Robert Oppenheimer and fellow U.S. scientists – who on worked together on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb – decided to warn humanity of the dangers of nuclear war.
And, other than in 2023, where the clock was also set at 90 seconds to oblivion, we appear just as close as ever to global annihilation this year.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
