Imagine
you are riding your bicycle along a road. Suddenly, a car passes by you very
close. The car almost hits you. You feel the draft of slipstreaming and almost
lose balance. Your heart jumps up a dozen beats. You think to yourself and may
even shout it out at the receding driver of the car: ‘Too damn close!’
That’s the
response I had a couple of days ago to reading the announcement by the Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists in releasing the setting of the Doomsday Clock.
The Doomsday
Clock has been set every year since 1947. Initially focussing upon the
threat of nuclear annihilation the clock symbolically indicates how close the
world has become over the previous year to existential obliteration,
represented as midnight. Over the past 79 years other existential threats have
been added to the assessment.
The
clock’s first setting (in 1947) was placed at 7 minutes to midnight, in
recognition of the threat of nuclear warfare following the dropping of nuclear
bombs upon Japan in 1945.
In the
time since its first rendition the Doomsday Clock has been placed
furthest from midnight in 1991 (17 minutes to midnight) following the end of
the Cold War and the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START.)
Sadly, with increasing numbers of nuclear-armed nations and other tensions, the
clock trended towards midnight so that by 2018 it was set at just 2 minutes to
midnight.
Within
just two years, with the realisation of the enormity of the threat of climate
change and cyber-warfare, the clock was set (in 2020) at 100 seconds (1 minute
and 40 seconds) to midnight.
The Doomsday
Clock has remained at less than 2 minutes to midnight ever since. In 2023
and 2024 it was set at 90 seconds to midnight. Then last year (2025) the clock
moved a further one second towards the fateful hour of midnight.
And this
year?
The clock
has been set at 85 seconds to midnight.
That is too
damn close!
The clock
has been set closer to midnight this year because of four threats: 1. Nuclear
threats intensified and three regional conflicts (Russia-Ukraine, India-Pakistan,
and Israel/US bombing Iranian nuclear facilities), threaten to intensify, 2.
Climate change outlook has worsened, 3. Development of “mirror-life” carries
with it catastrophic risk, 4. Accelerating evolution of artificial intelligence
(AI).1
Compounding
these threats has been the rise of autocratic leadership throughout the world,
especially within three of the world's superpowers. The Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists announcement notes that, ‘Leaders of the United
States, Russia, and China greatly vary in their autocratic leanings, but they
all have approaches to international relations that favour grandiosity and
competition over diplomacy and cooperation.’
Returning
to the parable of the cyclist and the car.
One car
may be a scare. The Doomsday Clock announcement, however, indicates that
the cyclist is being closely passed by a procession of cars, anyone of which on
their own could cause the cyclist serious harm. That is terrifying. All of them together gravely
increases the danger to the cyclist.
The
drivers of the cars seem to not notice.
We
cyclists must call out:
Too
damn close!
Notes:
1. The full
announcement can be read here: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/#nav_menu
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