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
75th 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.
