100 Seconds to Midnight

What are currently the greatest threats to the human race? Without a doubt, in my mind at least, there are three: covid-19 in the short term, nuclear weapons in the mid-range, and global warming in the more distant future.

It was mainly the latter two that in January of this year led the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board to set the iconic Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight, closer to “doomsday” than at any point since its creation in 1947. (Here is the link to that announcement:  https://thebulletin.org/2020/01/press-release-it-is-now-100-seconds-to-midnight/ .) 

The Threat of Covid-19

Since the new setting of the Doomsday Clock was in January, the new coronavirus pandemic was not a part of the consideration for the new setting, which had remained at two minutes before midnight since January 2018.

However, in spite of the fact that there have been nearly 750,000 deaths worldwide caused by covid-19—and who knows how many hundreds of thousands there will be before it is brought under control—it is not likely to bring about “doomsday.”

It has, however, already brought about extreme sadness for those who have lost loved ones and it threatens to make life more precarious for tens of millions of people.

For example, the upcoming edition of Foreign Affairs journal has an article titled “The Pandemic Depression: The Global Economy Will Never Be the Same.” The authors explore the massive economic contraction caused by the covid-19 pandemic that could push as many as 60 million people into extreme poverty.

But there are bigger threats to humanity.

The Threat of Nuclear Weapons

The statement issued by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on January 23 declared: “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.”

In this post I am writing mostly about the former, partly because of all that has been said this past week in remembrance of the 75^th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

New energy is now being given to ratifying the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which was passed by the United Nations in 2017. It will become a “legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination” when ratified by 50 entities.”

The three that did so last week—Ireland, Nigeria, and Niue—make 43 that have now ratified the TPNW. Of course, none of the nations possessing nuclear weapons have ratified that treaty nor, inexplicably, has Japan.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a coalition of non-governmental organizations in one hundred countries promoting adherence to and implementation of the TPNW.

(You can find more information about that important group, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 here: https://www.icanw.org/.)

An informative Aug. 4 article about ICAN hopefully states, “The world has never been so close to abolishing nuclear weapons and there’s hope this may be achieved by the end of this year.” (See here:  https://wagingnonviolence.org/2020/08/nuclear-weapons-abolition-hiroshima-nagasaki-75th-anniversary/.)

May it be so!

The Threat of Climate Change

Short of an all-out nuclear war, the biggest threat to the long-term future of humankind is global warming. That was the subject of my first blog post this year: “Climate Crisis: The Challenge of the Decade.”

With the current pandemic raging, it seems that we are not now hearing much about the ever-increasing threat of global warming. I hope that soon the focus of our attention on the urgent matters of the present can shift to a consideration of the even more urgent matters threatening the future of the human race.

After all, “100 seconds to midnight” is a dire warning that needs to be taken far more seriously than most of us have.

The Best of Times, or the Worst of Times?

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....” So began Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (1859), the historical novel set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. That was then, but what about now?

Pinker’s Rosy Picture

Steven Pinker is a psychology professor at Harvard University. His latest book was released last month under the title “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.”

Pinker, born in Canada in 1954, is also the author of The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011). In that book as well as in his new one, Pinker writes how despite all the “doom and gloom” talk that surrounds us, the world is getting better in almost every way.

“A perfect future,” a review of Pinker’s new book, was published in the Feb. 24 issue of The Economist. It concluded, “Mr Pinker’s broad point is surely right. Things are not falling apart. And barring a cataclysmic asteroid strike or nuclear war, it is likely that they will continue to get better.”

The chances of an asteroid strike are completely unknown, but nuclear warfare is seemingly a distinct possibility in the near future—and that certainly would obliterate Pinker’s rosy picture of the present state of the world.

Picturing a Nuclear Arms Race

“Making America Nuclear Again” was the title of the cover story of the Feb. 12 issue of Time magazine. The lead article, posted online on Feb. 1, is “Donald Trump Is Playing a Dangerous Game of Nuclear Poker.”  

Author W.J. Hennigan contends that the Trump Administration “is convinced that the best way to limit the spreading nuclear danger is to expand and advertise its ability to annihilate its enemies.” In addition, DJT “has signed off on a $1.2 trillion plan to overhaul the entire nuclear-weapons complex.”

Citing the Trump Administration’s “Nuclear Posture Review” as one of its reasons, in January the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced the movement of the Doomsday Clock hands 30 seconds closer to midnight—the closest to ”doomsday” it has been since 1953. (See this article.)

Since then, just last Thursday President Putin of Russia claimed that Russia was developing new nuclear weapons that could overcome any U.S. missile defenses. This Washington Post article pictures what clearly seems to be a new nuclear arms race.

Picturing a Nuclear-Free World

Do you remember ICAN? It seems not to be widely known, but it is the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons—and it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2017.

Perhaps it can be said that ICAN is seeking to use “reason, science, humanism, and progress,” which Pinker emphasizes in his new book, to picture a world much different than the one now developing because of the belligerence—and fear—of the political leaders of North Korea, Russia, and the United States.

Partly as a result of ICAN’s advocacy, in July 2016 the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was approved by the United Nations with affirmative votes by 122 (out of 193) member nations (with 71 not voting). (Here is a link to the treaty’s full text.)

When, or if, the TPNW is ratified by fifty UN members, it will become international law—with nuclear weapons being outlawed just as chemical and biological weapons have been in the past.

To date, only five nations (Cuba, Guyana, the Holy See, Mexico, and Thailand) have ratified the TPNW, but 56 have signed it.

So which is it? Is this the best of times or the worst of times? With ratification of the TPNW perhaps it could be the former.