By Tim Binnall
The annual assessment of how close humanity may be to destroying itself, known as the Doomsday Clock, went unchanged for 2019, leaving humanity in the same precarious position as last year. The proverbial keepers of the clock, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, announced this year's determination at a press conference held on Thursday morning. As had been the case in 2018, the organization declared that we are 'two minutes to midnight,' which is the worst position that the clock has ever been set and, aside from last year, had only been reached once before in the past during the Cold War.
While some might take some solace in the fact that Doomsday Clock did not advance even closer to midnight, the scientists behind the barometer stressed that the calculation for 2019 should not be cause for celebration. In a detailed statement issued by the group, they described the tumultuous nature of the planet as "the new abnormal" and warned that it is "simply too volatile and dangerous to accept as a continuing state of world affairs." Specifically, they ominously cautioned that "humanity now faces two simultaneous existential threats, either of which would be cause for extreme concern and immediate attention."
The first looming danger, they observed, is the continued proliferation of nuclear weapons and the modernization of these devices. Secondly, the group noted that climate change continues to be an increasingly destructive force on the planet that has yet to be fully addressed by the global community of nations. Chillingly, the Bulletin also observed that "an intentional corruption of the information ecosystem" has distorted reality for many individuals and undermined society's trust in science, making the challenge of combating nuclear proliferation and climate change all the more difficult.
Although their assessment this year was largely quite dire, as one might expect from an organization which oversees a doomsday clock, the group did express some hope that changes could be made that could alleviate the dangers facing the planet. To that end, they shared a number of courses of action that should be taken, including new nuclear arms treaties, redoubling of nations' efforts to reduce carbon emissions, and an international effort to "discourage and penalize the misuse of information technology." Whether these suggestions will come to fruition remains to be seen, but let's hope that they do, since nobody wants to see the Doomsday Clock set a record next year by advancing even closer to midnight and possibly reaching a point of no return.