Latest news with #ScienceandSecurityBoard
CBS News
26-02-2025
- Science
- CBS News
Doomsday Clock is closest its ever been to human extinction, but University of Chicago scientists remain optimistic
It was a small change, but a frightening one. Last month, the "Doomsday Clock" was moved up to 89 seconds, the closest the world has ever been to total annihilation. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, based at the University of Chicago, uses the clock as a metaphor to show how close the planet is to reaching human extinction. Believe it or not, the goal of the Doomsday Clock isn't to scare you. It's to make you take action. Despite the grim message the clock currently conveys, one of the people behind it is actually optimistic about humanity's future. University of Chicago professor Daniel Holz is one of the people who moved the Doomsday Clock forward last month. He's the current chair of the Science and Security Board at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which has been tracking the risk of world destruction since atomic weapons were invented. "It's a symbolic thing. We're trying to capture the urgency of the moment," he said. "We're at a moment of incredible danger. Everyone is freaked out. What are we doing? We need to turn the clock back." At this moment, Holz said humanity is threatened by nuclear weapons… "We're building more weapons, we're modernizing the arsenal. Even though we have plenty of weapons to wipe out civilization many times over ... we want even more and even better weapons. You can ask why, but we're doing it, China's doing it, Russia is doing it, the treaties are all going away," he said. Climate change... "Climate change is happening. We just came off the hottest year on record. There are fires, there was floods, there's extreme drought. There are extreme storms. It's all happening. I don't think anyone paying any attention has any doubt at this point that climate change is happening, and it's getting worse," Holz said. Biohazards like pandemics... "Because of travel, because of modern life as we know it, pandemics have a tendency to go much faster, and we saw that with COVID, and no place is safe," Holz said. And even artificial intelligence... "If an AI hallucinates and ends civilization, that would be a bummer," Holz said. But the clock isn't meant to depress you. It's designed to inspire you. "We're hoping that, by bringing attention to this, people will react accordingly, and the clock will be turned back," Holz said. The clock did turn back in 2010. So, what would make Holz and the Bulletin move the clock in the right direction again? "Heads of state saying, 'Whoa, we do have to talk. Let's not just demonize each other, but let's sit down and try to make a deal. Let's try to work something out.' That is progress," he said. Holz said there are already positive signs on climate change. "The world is increasingly aware; and citizens, people on the streets are increasingly aware. We need that to kind of trickle up, as it were, to leadership," Holz said. "To be on this board to work with the Doomsday Clock is a fundamentally optimistic endeavor. If we were convinced it was hopeless, there's no point in spending one's time doing this." The furthest from midnight the Doomsday Clock has ever been was 17 minutes to midnight in 1991, after the Cold War ended and a new arms treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union greatly reduced the number of nuclear weapons in their arsenals.
The Independent
29-01-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Watch Doomsday Clock's latest update on how close planet is to catastrophe
The ' Doomsday Clock ' has been set to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to symbolising global catastrophe. Unveiled Tuesday (28 January) by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the clock highlights threats like nuclear disaster, climate change, disinformation, and artificial intelligence. "We set the clock closer to midnight because we do not see sufficient progress, positive progress on the global challenges we face, including nuclear risk, climate change, biological threats, and advances in disruptive technologies," said Daniel Holz, Chair of the Bulletin's Science and Security Board.
Japan Times
28-01-2025
- Science
- Japan Times
'Doomsday Clock' moves closer than ever to midnight
WASHINGTON – Atomic scientists on Tuesday moved their "Doomsday Clock" closer to midnight than ever before, citing Russian nuclear threats amid its invasion of Ukraine, tensions in other world hot spots, military applications of artificial intelligence and climate change as factors underlying the risks of global catastrophe. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the clock to 89 seconds before midnight — the theoretical point of annihilation. That is one second closer than it was set last year. The Chicago-based nonprofit created the clock in 1947 during the Cold War tensions that followed World War II to warn the public about how close humankind was to destroying the world. "The factors shaping this year's decision — nuclear risk, climate change, the potential misuse of advances in biological science and a variety of other emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence — were not new in 2024. But we have seen insufficient progress in addressing the key challenges, and in many cases this is leading to increasingly negative and worrisome effects," said Daniel Holz, chair of the Bulletin's Science and Security Board.
New York Times
28-01-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Doomsday Clock Moves One Second Closer to Catastrophe
The world is closer than ever to the apocalypse. That was the dire assessment issued on Tuesday by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a nonprofit organization and publication whose signature Doomsday Clock has been estimating — in the stark terms of 'minutes to midnight' — how close humanity is to annihilation since 1947. The organization said that it had moved the clock's hands closer to that dreaded day — from 90 seconds to midnight to 89 seconds to midnight. It cited the threats posed by nuclear weapons, climate change and the potential misuse of biological science and artificial intelligence — existential dangers it said had been exacerbated by the spread of misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories. 'In setting the Clock one second closer to midnight, we send a stark signal: Because the world is already perilously close to the precipice, a move of even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster,' the bulletin said in a statement. The clock is set by the organization's Science and Security Board, made up of experts in nuclear technology, global security, climate science and other fields. The clock was created in 1947, when the organization's concerns revolved around the prospect of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The time then was set at seven minutes to midnight. Since then, the scientists behind the project have broadened their focus to consider other threats like climate change, infectious disease and the spread of misinformation fueled by artificial intelligence. And the clock's hands have moved back and forth. The last shift was in January 2023, when the clock was changed from 100 seconds to midnight to 90 seconds to midnight, largely because of the war in Ukraine. The clock was set farthest from midnight in 1991, after the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, designed to scale down their stockpiles of long-lange nuclear weapons. In response, the bulletin moved the clock to 17 minutes to midnight. The clock did not change during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 because 'too little was known at the time about the circumstances of the standoff or what the outcome would be,' the bulletin says on its website. Critics have dismissed the clock as a stunt based on subjective assessments. Others have said that its repeated warnings of total annihilation could end up being dismissed by the public — the public policy equivalent of the boy who cried wolf. But the scientists who set the clock call it an internationally recognized symbol and 'a reminder of the perils we must address if we are to survive on the planet.' 'The purpose of the Doomsday Clock is to start a global conversation about the very real existential threats that keep the world's top scientists awake at night,' said Daniel Holz, the chairman of the Science and Security Board and the founding director of the Existential Risk Laboratory at University of Chicago. This year, the bulletin said that global leaders were failing to confront mounting threats to human survival. It said that the war in Ukraine, now in its third year, 'could become nuclear at any moment because of a rash decision or through accident or miscalculation.' It warned that global nuclear arms controls were 'collapsing.' And it said that the impacts of climate change had increased over the past year, which was almost certainly the hottest on record. The growth in solar and wind energy, the bulletin said, 'has been impressive but remains insufficient to stabilize the climate.' In a clear allusion to President Trump, the organization said: 'Judging from recent electoral campaigns, climate change is viewed as a low priority in the United States and many other countries.' Mr. Trump this month signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the global pact to fight climate change, as part of a series of actions to promote fossil fuels and to withdraw support for renewable energy. The bulletin also warned of the spread of bird flu and said that rapid advances in artificial intelligence had 'increased the risk that terrorists or countries may attain the capability of designing biological weapons for which countermeasures do not exist.' Despite the bleak outlook, the bulletin said that there was still an opportunity for the world to move back from the brink of collapse if countries — particularly the United States, China and Russia — work more closely to combat climate change, disease and other threats. 'There is still time to make the right choices to turn back the hands of the Doomsday Clock,' Juan Manuel Santos, the former president of Colombia and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, said on Tuesday at a news conference. 'In Colombia, we say, 'Cada segundo cuenta.' Every second counts. Let us use each one wisely.'
The Independent
28-01-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Doomsday Clock update moves the planet one second closer to apocalypse
The ' Doomsday Clock ' has been set to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to symbolising global catastrophe. Unveiled Tuesday (28 January) by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the clock highlights threats like nuclear disaster, climate change, disinformation, and artificial intelligence. "We set the clock closer to midnight because we do not see sufficient progress, positive progress on the global challenges we face, including nuclear risk, climate change, biological threats, and advances in disruptive technologies," said Daniel Holz, Chair of the Bulletin's Science and Security Board.
