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WHAT ME WORRY? ATOMIC CLOCK INCHING CLOSER TO D-DAY |
| (01/27/2019) |
| POWER, MONEY AND THE BOMB While the nation awaits for President Donald Trump's latest tweet, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is keeping the Doomsday Clock set at two minutes to midnight a metaphor for the end of the world calling the threats against humankind "a new abnormal." The clock is stuck at 11:58, citing nuclear weapons and climate change as two existential risks that leave the world dangerously close to an apocalypse. A number of the world's greatest minds have long predicted we will not have enough common sense to keep us from self destructing. "The 2019 time should not be taken as a sign of stability but as a stark warning," Bulletin President Rachel Bronson told reporters at the National Press Club in Washington. "It's a state as worrisome as the most dangerous times of the Cold War. It's a state that features an unpredictable and shifting landscape of simmering disputes that multiply the chances for major conflict to erupt. This new abnormal is simply too volatile and too dangerous to accept as a continuing state of world affairs." "Recognizing this grim reality, it is still two minutes to midnight remaining the closest to midnight that the clock has ever been set." Bronson said the current time is the closest it has been to doom since 1953, when the United States and Soviet Union began testing hydrogen bombs. The scientists decided that keeping the clock set at that "daunting time" was appropriate. "The U.S.-Russian relations are near an all-time low," "the arms-control architecture is deteriorating" and "carbon emissions are rising after a period of plateauing." More specifically, the scientists referenced the unresolved issues with North Korea and President Trump's decision to abandon the nuclear deal with Iran. "The world's nuclear nations proceeded with programs of 'nuclear modernization' that are all but indistinguishable from a worldwide arms race, and the military doctrines of Russia and the United States have increasingly eroded the long-held taboo against the use of nuclear weapons." Bronson also emphasized "the intentional undermining of the information architecture for political purposes." In fact, the scientists have referenced a "reckless use of language" in the past but, this year, they called it out and expressed deep concern, Bronson said. "We began seeing very intentional efforts to undermine our ability to understand truth from fiction," she said, calling attempts to distort reality "a threat multiplier." "We worry that it will make dealing with these big issues all the more difficult." |
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