Since the year 1947, the Bullet of the Atomic Scientists has been keeping track of humanity's pace toward self-destruction. Since the advent of atomic weapons, fear has gripped the world. But that isn't all that humanity faces of course; worries about climate change and dangerous/unethical technology developments threaten us as a race too. In an effort to educate the world on how dangerous some of our actions are, the clock has served as a constant reminder that humanity needs to start addressing its problems sooner rather than later.
I have always had a fascination with the clock and everything that it stands for. First, let me give you a quick explanation of how to understand what the clock represents. The entire clock is a metaphorical representation of how close humanity is to destroying itself by its own hand. Threats of nuclear war, climate change, and rapidly evolving technology all contribute to the calculations that go into this representation of our doom. The closer we are to midnight, the closer we are to the extinction of humanity.
At its inception in 1947, the clock was set to 7 minutes before midnight. This was to highlight the growing tensions in the world as nuclear bombs struck fear into the hearts of all. As the Cold War began exacerbate nuclear tensions into the 50s, the clock was set to its lowest point of 2 minutes after the U.S. successfully tested its first thermonuclear weapon. Various treaties and proxy wars resulted in the time fluctuating up and down between the 60s and 90s. After the fall of the Soviet Union and subsequent end of the Cold War, the "Unipolar Moment" where the U.S. stood as the ultimate world power meant that the clock's time was reduced to 17 minutes to midnight. However, new developments abroad and failure to continue nuclear non-proliferation efforts began to reduce the clock once more.
Today, the Doomsday Clock stands at a chilling 2 minutes to midnight. This reading has of course been unprecedented since the height of the Cold War and just goes to show how many pressing issues we need to deal with today. Nuclear arms are no longer the only threat, and the recession of democracy across the globe is leading to other worries. Unfortunately, prospects of the clock's time being reduced do not look promising. Just as recently as February 1st of this year, the U.S. announced that it was backing out of an important nuclear treaty with Russia that banned medium to long range intercontinental nuclear ballistic missiles.
However, it is important to realize that the clock is not meant to cause panic. Rather, it is meant to shed light on issues that world can no longer ignore. The clock is a plea to world leaders to make their best efforts to combat these problems and prevent such things as further nuclear proliferation. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated during his inaugural address,the "Only thing we have to fear, is fear itself." Don't fear, but instead be a part of the change.
