The Doomsday Clock

An actual countdown to global destruction exists. The Doomsday Clock measures issues such as nuclear threats, biosecurity, and climate change in order to determine how close we are to “midnight”. This “midnight” is a symbol for basically the end of the world as we know it. This doesn’t mean that at midnight the world will suddenly implode, but midnight could mean that we go into a WWIII situation with nuclear fallout, it could also mean that global warming has reached a point of no return that makes it dangerous for us to live. There are plenty of things that could happen at midnight, but one thing is for certain, it will not be good.

The Doomsday Clock may sound like a weird comic book invention, and while it is the name of a DC story-line, it is actually followed up with scientific facts. It was created by the same scientists that were behind the Manhattan Project that ended in 1946. In the following year, the scientists formed the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and created the Doomsday Clock in response to recent nuclear threats.

Since then, the Doomsday Clock has been moved up and down, closer and further from midnight, reflecting the current state that the world is in. In the first year, the Clock was set to 7 minutes to midnight, which seems close considering there was no previous example to go off of. Being set at 7 minutes to midnight is actually not the closest it has been, in 1953 the Clock was moved to 2 minutes to midnight. Why? That was just after the U.S. created the Hydrogen Bomb, which escalated to power of nuclear threats. This was the year that the world seemed closest to certain destruction. On a slightly brighter note, the Doomsday Clock has once been moved comparatively far away from midnight. In 1991, the Clock moved all the way back to 17 minutes to midnight on account of The Cold War officially ending. That was the year that we were evidently at our safest.

However, we are approaching midnight yet again. In 2015 the clock was determined to be at 3 minutes to midnight, and it stayed that way for 2016. When the clock was updated for 2017 last January, it was moved closer to midnight. On January 25, 2017 the metaphorical clock ticked forward to 2 ½ minutes to midnight. This was the first time that the clock had ever moved to the half mark.

There are many possible speculations as to why the clock moved forward, it could be due to the election of Donald Trump and his comments of using nuclear force, it could also be due to the fact that we are continuing to burn through fossil fuels, adding to the greenhouse gases. In the official statement by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, they gave both of these as reasons for moving the clock forward thirty seconds. It was also stated that humans are with a doubt the cause for global warming that will inevitably endanger humanity. Another primary factor of the Clock change has to do with tensions between the U.S. and Russia, who together own 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons. The rising tensions between the two countries will continue to bring the clock closer to midnight if not resolved.

As of January 25, the Doomsday Clock was updated for the year 2018. The official Bulletin of Atomic Scientists report discussed the nuclear threats hanging over the world, “ North Korea’s nuclear weapons program made remarkable progress in 2017, increasing risks to North Korea itself, other countries in the region, and the United States”. But also discussed is the actual state that our world is in. Over the past year the U.S. alone has experienced historically dangerous weather conditions, all due to climate change. The Bulletin has made it clear that this is not a problem that will go away on its own, “The science linking climate change to human activity—mainly the burning of fossil fuels that produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases—is sound”. Another important factor to this year’s clock movement is the rate at which technology is improving, they claim it is moving “at a speed that challenges society’s ability to keep pace”.

With these factors combined, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have moved the clock to two minutes to midnight.

Rylee Cavins

Editor-in-Chief