‘Doomsday Clock’ moves closer to midnight, a year into Trump term

The 'Doomsday Clock' moved to 85 seconds to midnight, the closest ever, due to nuclear, climate, and disinformation concerns. Screenshot / Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The “Doomsday Clock” representing how near humanity is to catastrophe has moved closer than ever to midnight as concerns grow on nuclear weapons, climate change and disinformation.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which set up the metaphorical clock at the start of the Cold War, moved its time to 85 seconds to midnight – four seconds closer than a year ago.

The announcement comes a year into President Donald Trump’s second term in which he has shattered global norms including by ordering unilateral attacks and withdrawing from a slew of international organisations.

Russia, China, the United States and other major countries have “become increasingly aggressive, adversarial and nationalistic”, said a statement announcing the clock shift, determined after consultations with a board that includes eight Nobel laureates.

“Hard-won global understandings are collapsing, accelerating a winner-takes-all great power competition and undermining the international co-operation critical to reducing the risks of nuclear war, climate change, the misuse of biotechnology, the potential threat of artificial intelligence and other apocalyptic dangers.”

The Doomsday Clock board warned of heightened risks of a nuclear arms race, with the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia set to expire next week.

“For the first time in over half a century, there will be nothing preventing a runaway nuclear arms race,” Daniel Holz, a University of Chicago physicist who chairs the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, told a virtual news conference.

Trump has threatened to resume nuclear testing and is pushing a costly “Golden Dome” missile defence system that would further militarise space.

Minnesota approach spells conflict

The board members also voiced alarm over Trump’s crackdown in Minnesota, where he has deployed a phalanx of masked, armed anti-immigration agents who have aggressively repressed protesters and shot dead two people.

“History has shown that when governments become unaccountable to their own citizens, conflict and misery follow,” Holz said.

The board also noted record emission levels of carbon dioxide, the key driver of the planet’s warming temperatures, as Trump sharply reverses US policy on fighting climate change and a number of other countries have backtracked in turn.

Underpinning the threats, board members warned of a dangerous fracturing of global trust.

“We are living through an information Armageddon – the crisis beneath all crises – driven by extractive and predatory technology that spreads lies faster than facts and profits from our division,” said Maria Ressa, the Filipina investigative journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner who faced intense pressure from iron-fisted former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, now awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court.

Ressa pointed to Trump’s use of force in Minnesota and threats to seize Greenland as examples of losing “the battle for information integrity” with memes turning into reality.

“The men who control the platforms that shape what billions believe have merged with the men who control governments and militaries,” she said.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded by Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer and other nuclear scientists at the University of Chicago, initially placed the clock at seven minutes to midnight in 1947.

It was moved closer last year but by only one second, amid guarded hopes on newly reinaugurated Trump’s promises to pursue peace and co-operation.

“The problem is that rhetoric has not matched actions at all,” said Alexandra Bell, president and CEO of the Bulletin.

- Agence France-Presse