By AFP - Agence France Presse
The Doomsday Clock ticks one second closer to midnight
By Shaun TANDON
The “doomsday clock” symbolizing how close humanity is to destruction ticked one second closer to midnight on Tuesday as concerns about nuclear war, climate, and public health were shaken by the return of US President Donald Trump.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which set the clock at the start of the Cold War, moved the clock to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been, a week after Trump's inauguration.
The last time the clock was moved to 90 seconds to midnight was because Russia invaded Ukraine with nuclear weapons in 2022. It was originally set at seven minutes to midnight in 1947.
“At 89 seconds to midnight, the doomsday clock is closer to catastrophe than at any other time in its history,” said former Colombian president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Juan Manuel Santos, president of The Elders, a group of prominent former leaders.
“The clock speaks of the existential threats that confront us and the need for unity and bold leadership to turn back the clock,” he said at a press conference in Washington to present the conclusions of the council of experts.
“This is a bleak picture. But it is not yet irreversible,” he said.
Just a few days into his second presidency, Trump has already broken the norms of international cooperation.
Santos welcomed Trump's promises of diplomacy with Russia and China. Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine, which has raised fears of Russia's use of nuclear weapons, putting pressure on both sides.
But Santos said that the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization harmed the planet in two major risks.
The world has just experienced another record year of high temperatures and major disasters.
Other countries will soon be able to say that if the United States, the world's largest economy, “won't make an effort to limit carbon emissions, why should I?” said Santos.
And with many people's memories fading of COVID-19, “we have to remind them of what happened - and what will happen will be worse, according to all the scientists,” said Santos.
Suzet McKinney, a public health expert on the board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said the risks of infectious diseases have been confounded by advances in artificial intelligence, which increase the risks that rogue agents could release biological weapons.
“As nation-states around the world and even our government engage in practices that are certain to encourage rogue behavior and/or undermine our ability to contain the spread of infectious diseases, new or otherwise, we cannot hide our heads in the sand,” she said at the press conference.
But Robert Socolow, a physicist who also sits on the board, said the revelation by Chinese intelligence firm DeepSeek - which has shaken the United States - could ultimately also pay dividends by reducing the energy demands of the fast-growing field of AI.
The Chinese discovery could mirror “the kind of progress in semiconductor chips that reduced the energy demand of ordinary computing” in the analog era.
But the experts also warned that artificial intelligence risks making disinformation worse.
“All of these dangers are greatly exacerbated by a potent threat multiplier - the spread of disinformation, misinformation, and conspiracy theories that degrade the communications ecosystem and increasingly blur the line between truth and falsehood,” said Daniel Holz, chairman of the council.
sct/st
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