LOS ANGELES.–When the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock in 1947, it was only two years after the atomic bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing nearly 100,000 in unprecedented explosions heralding the new nuclear age. Nuclear scientists led by J. Robert Oppenheimer in the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico created the world first two atom bombs, too late to save millions of lives lost battling Germany’s Adolf Hitler but not to late to stop Japan’s Emperor Hirohito for his rampage in the Pacific. Atomic scientists including Albert Einstein were so tortured by what they created they created the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to warn the world about the growing possibility of a nuclear Apocalypse to press elected officials to work toward nuclear disarmament to the good of human survival, something now at risk in the nuclear age.
Creating the Doomsday Clock in 1947 was set seven minutes to midnight, the time when the world was set for a nuclear Holocaust, all because there were so many unknowns with the Soviet Union launching their own atomic bomb projects, somehow getting nuclear secrets from renegade nuclear scientists and others. Things got so frenzied in the early 1950s that the House Un-American Activities Committee led by Chairman Martin Dies (D-Tex.) who worked closely with the Sen. Joseph McCarthy (D-Wis.) head of the Senate Government Operations Committee. American leaders were blindsided by leaks of classified nuclear information to the Soviet Union, eventually fingering Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for selling nuclear secrets to the Soviets. Whatever the controversy, the Rosenbergs were executed by electric chair at Sing Sing prison June 19, 1953 for passing on nuclear secrets.
Creating the Doomsday Clock was meant as a metaphor to explain the threat of nuclear weapons to the survival of the human race. “We set the clock closer to midnight [89 seconds to be exact] because we do not see positive progress on the global challenges we face including nuclear risk, climate change, biological threats and advances in disruptive technologies,” said Daniel Holtz, Chairman of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board. Citing other challenges like climate change, biological threats or disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence [AI], Holtz includes other possible causes of human annihilation. Holtz knows that the most immediate of all threats is the nuclear arms race that something gone unchecked during the Biden administration. President Joe Biden was the first-and-only U.S. president to not make nonproliferation a part of his foreign policy.
Holtz raises climate change or the rising temperatures around the global attributable by scientist to burning fossil fuels. So far, the United Nations has prioritized climate change over nuclear nonproliferation, hosting the COP annual United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC], trying to hold the industrial world to the 2015 Paris Climate parameters on 1.5% Celsius beyond the pre-industrial age. How the U.N.’s COP meetings affect the Doomsday Clock is anyone’s guess. Bulletin of Nuclear Scientists designed the clock to reflect the work of nuclear nonproliferation, something that hasn’t happened under the Biden administration. President Donald Trump, who withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords, wants to return to nuclear nonproliferation with the Russian Federation. Bulletin of Atomic Scientists see a real deterioration in the Doomsday Clock.
Bulletin’s atomic scientists warned the Ukraine War “could become nuclear at any moment” and a wider Mideast War could “spiral out of control,” while nuclear countries like North Korea and Pakistan continue to expand nuclear arsenals. Holtz believe that biotechnology and Artificial Intelligence [AI] “far outpaced policy, regulation and a thorough understanding of their consequences.” But when it comes to managing nuclear risk, the original in intent of atomic scientists, nothing has been done over Biden’s presidency. Biden opted to joint Ukraine’s proxy war with the Kremlin, pitting the U.S. against the Russian Federation, all but wrecking decades of diplomacy, détente and arms control. When Trump finally ends the Ukraine War, he wants to return to normal diplomatic relations with Russia, including nuclear nonproliferation, something ignored for four years by Biden.
Trump needs to heed the latest warning from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists pushing the Doomsday Clock to only 89 seconds before a nuclear Apocalypse. Biden was the only U.S. president to end decades of arms control talks with Russia, turning a global partner into a mortal enemy. Trump has the challenge of return to normal diplomatic relations but must first end the reckless, destructive and costly Ukraine War. Whether the Bulletin sees climate change, biotechnology and AI as a threat to civilization, by far the biggest risk to ending civilization as we know it are nuclear weapons. Ending the Ukraine War is by far the biggest step toward turning back the Doomsday Clock, now dangerously close to midnight. “There’s hope. We certainly believe that the clock can be moved back and there many actions that can be taken,” Holtz said to prevent nuclear war.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
