Five Minutes to Midnight

[Dave Monroe]

Board Statement

17 January 2007

We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age. Not
since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous
choices. North Korea’s recent test of a nuclear
weapon, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a renewed U.S.
emphasis on the military utility of nuclear weapons,
the failure to adequately secure nuclear materials,
and the continued presence of some 26,000 nuclear
weapons in the United States and Russia are
symptomatic of a larger failure to solve the problems
posed by the most destructive technology on Earth.

As in past deliberations, we have examined other
human-made threats to civilization. We have concluded
that the dangers posed by climate change are nearly as
dire as those posed by nuclear weapons. The effects
may be less dramatic in the short term than the
destruction that could be wrought by nuclear
explosions, but over the next three to four decades
climate change could cause drastic harm to the
habitats upon which human societies depend for
survival.

    This deteriorating state of global affairs leads
the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists--in consultation with a Board of Sponsors
that includes 18 Nobel laureates--to move the minute
hand of the “Doomsday Clock” from seven to five
minutes to midnight.

[...]

The terrible and still unprecedented destructive power
of nuclear weapons led Albert Einstein to observe,
“With nuclear weapons, everything has changed, save
our way of thinking.” As we stand at the brink of a
second nuclear age and at the onset of an era of
unprecedented climate change, our way of thinking
about the uses and control of technologies must change
to prevent unspeakable destruction and future human
suffering.

The Clock is ticking.

http://www.thebulletin.org/minutes-to-midnight/board-statements.html

http://www.thebulletin.org/minutes-to-midnight/


 
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