Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Sets Doomsday Clock at 89 Seconds to Midnight

What Happened?

Yesterday the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced they were moving the Doomsday Clock from ninety to eighty-nine seconds until midnight. This marks the closest it has ever been since the clock’s inception in 1947.

The announcement was accompanied by a statement highlighting the increasing number of risks facing today’s world such as nuclear war, rapidly advancing technology, and extreme weather.

The group said they hoped world leaders would recognize the moment of peril facing the world and act accordingly. Although the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists didn’t specify what actions they hoped world leaders would take.

Why it Matters

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists founders include Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer, and the mission of the organization is ‘to equip the public, policymakers, and scientists with the information needed to reduce man-made threats to our existence.’

When it was founded in 1947 the biggest man-made threat facing the world was nuclear weapons. The original purpose of the Doomsday Clock was to convey how close the world was to a nuclear war.

For comparison, during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which brought the United States and the Soviet Union perilously close to a nuclear war, the Doomsday Clock was set at seven minutes to midnight.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the clock was moved back to seventeen minutes to midnight. In recent years the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has steadily moved the clock forward, most recently following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 

There is value in having a scientific perspective on man-made threats to security, and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has a history of rankling governments and politicians of all persuasions.

The group is non-political, but because their analysis often touches on issues of international security, critics frequently try to cast them in a purely political light. Acknowledging the group’s expertise and analytical work isn’t the same thing as agreeing with them.

During the Cold War the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists enjoyed more prestige, in part because of who its founders were and because nuclear war was the preeminent threat of the time.

When the public’s attention was fixated on nuclear war, warnings issued by the people who invented nuclear weapons carried a lot of weight. Since there are a multitude of threats facing the world today and nuclear war is just one of them, the group has seen its influence decline among the public and government officials.

How it Affects You

Few would argue against the proposition that we live in dangerous times with many threats to our security and prosperity.

But just how dangerous things are is a matter of opinion, and there is no single trusted source of truth to provide an answer.

While the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is just one organization, the collective experience and expertise it utilizes means the warnings it issues deserve a share of our attention.