Conservationists, scientists, and the world in general have been keeping a watchful eye on the Doomsday Clock for quite some time. All of us also have done our best to push back the hands of doom and the verdict is in: its hands remain as close to midnight as ever.
If it’s any solace, our failure to win back a little more time for the planet has however managed to stay the hand counting the seconds down to doomsday. According to the latest reports, the time on the metaphorical clock remains the same as it was last year, with 90 seconds until midnight. Unfortunately, it’s still the closest it has ever been to the hour.
But what is the Doomsday Clock?
The metaphorical Doomsday Clock (and it is a metaphorical one) is a representation of the annual calculation that scientists make about the chance of the world as we know it coming to an end and the time we have left until that point. This calculation is made by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and has been in force since 1947 and it’s important to remember that it excludes the possibility of a natural disaster.
The Doomsday Clock looks exclusively at the possibility of a man-made apocalypse. The clock’s midnight represents this doomsday point, and the team of scientists calculates how close we are to this final fruit of our own hubris. The panellists on the Bulletin, numbering 22 in total, review new developments in science and technology every year to estimate how close to the end humans—and the planet are.
The group of scientists that first calculated the Doomsday Clock were called the ‘Chicago Atomic Scientists’. This group participated in the Manhattan Project, which, if it had been fading from the mainstream consciousness before, was brought sharply back into everyone’s memory by last summer’s blockbuster hit Oppenheimer.
The image of the clock that the calculation (and its publication) invokes is a deliberate choice. This suggests that midnight—or total destruction is inevitable unless it is stopped through external intervention. What the ‘midnight’ of the clock indicates is something that changes each year. This midnight could be a world war, nuclear fallout, energy, artificial intelligence, or climate science crises.
The main factors defining midnight for the planet for now are climate change, global conflicts, and the development of AI. In a statement, the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board elaborated that they had considered “multiple global threats, including disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Hamas war, bio-threats, the continued climate crisis, and state-sponsored disinformation campaigns.”
Back when it was first calculated in 1947, the clock’s hands showed seven minutes to midnight. The world achieved a triumphant seventeen minutes to midnight in 1991. The planet hit 90 seconds, or one and a half minutes in 2023, and it’s where we remain now. Since its first calculation, the clock has jumped forward seventeen times and has jumped backwards eight times.
This year’s Doomsday Clock was published on the morning of the 23rd this January. It is the first revaluation of where we stand in relation to global destruction since the start of the aggression against Palestine. It is also the second evaluation since the commencement of Russia’s aggression on Ukraine. These conflicts have only served to heighten the ever-looming threat of global nuclear war.
But what does the 90 seconds assigned to the planet mean? Scientists warn that even though the time remaining has not changed since last year, it should not be taken as a positive indication of stability. Speaking to the news media, the President of the Bulletin, Rachel Bronson had the following to say.
“Make no mistake: resetting the clock at 90 seconds to midnight is not an indication that the world is stable. Quite the opposite. It’s urgent for governments and communities around the world to act.”
The Board followed up with a stronger emphasis on the escalating levels of conflict taking place in the world today.
“The war in Ukraine and the widespread and growing reliance on nuclear weapons increase the risk of nuclear escalation. China, Russia, and the United States are all spending huge sums to expand or modernise their nuclear arsenals, adding to the ever-present danger of nuclear war through mistake or miscalculation.”
The Doomsday Clock is not a definitive calculation of course – the number it arrives at is more an estimation than anything else. The figure it arrives at—the 90 seconds, is meant to spark global conversations among the actors that can actually bring about the necessary changes that can turn back the hands of time. This has of course garnered its own set of vocal critics. One of these is an especially relevant one: the Doomsday Clock is not one based on objective indicators. The following are the two questions that the Bulletin poses in carrying out the estimation.
* Is humanity safer or at greater risk than last year?
* Is humanity safer or at greater risk compared to the 77 years the clock has been set?
Needless to say, the answers to these questions can only be less than objective. On its most fundamental level, its objectivity is affected by the very fields of expertise that the panellists belonged to. As mentioned above, the threats the Clock considers change with each estimation. Others argue that keeping the audience of the Clock in a permanent state of high-alerts can be more debilitating, rather than indicative of sustainable change.
The Clock has even come under criticism for being a political tool due to its prioritisation of certain threats over others. Speaking to CNN, Michael E. Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor at the University of Pennsylvania describes the clock as an ‘imperfect metaphor’, which nevertheless “remains an important rhetorical device that reminds us, year after year, of the tenuousness of our current existence on this planet.”
(Theruni M. Liyanage)