{"id":14892,"date":"2019-01-24T16:03:10","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T21:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=14892"},"modified":"2019-10-10T08:33:32","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T12:33:32","slug":"2019-doomsday-clock-statement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=14892","title":{"rendered":"2019 Doomsday Clock Statement"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .<\/p>\n

Press release by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists<\/a><\/p>\n

Humanity now faces two simultaneous existential threats, either of which would be cause for extreme concern and immediate attention. These major threats\u2014nuclear weapons and climate change\u2014were exacerbated this past year by the increased use of information warfare to undermine democracy around the world, amplifying risk from these and other threats and putting the future of civilization in extraordinary danger.<\/p>\n

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\nVideo of announcement<\/a>
\n<\/center><\/p>\n

In the nuclear realm, the United States abandoned the Iran nuclear deal and announced it would withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), grave steps towards a complete dismantlement of the global arms control process. Although the United States and North Korea moved away from the bellicose rhetoric of 2017, the urgent North Korean nuclear dilemma remains unresolved. Meanwhile, the world\u2019s nuclear nations proceeded with programs of \u201cnuclear modernization\u201d that are all but indistinguishable from a worldwide arms race, and the military doctrines of Russia and the United States have increasingly eroded the long-held taboo against the use of nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

On the climate change front, global carbon dioxide emissions\u2014which seemed to plateau earlier this decade\u2014resumed an upward climb in 2017 and 2018. To halt the worst effects of climate change, the countries of the world must cut net worldwide carbon dioxide emissions to zero by well before the end of the century. By such a measure, the\u00a0world community failed dismally last year. At the same time, the main global accord on addressing climate change\u2014the 2015 Paris agreement\u2014has become increasingly beleaguered.The United States announced it will withdraw from that pact, and at the December climate summit in Poland, the United States allied itself with Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait (all major petroleum-producing countries) to undercut an expert report on climate change impacts that the Paris climate conference had itself commissioned.<\/p>\n

(Continued in right column)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Question related to this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

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Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?<\/a> <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

(Continued from left column)<\/p>\n

Amid these unfortunate nuclear and climate developments, there was a rise during the last year in the intentional corruption of the information ecosystem on which modern civilization depends. In many forums, including particularly social media, nationalist leaders and their surrogates\u00a0lied shamelessly, insisting that their lies were truth, and the truth \u201cfake news.\u201d\u00a0These intentional attempts to distort reality exaggerate social divisions, undermine trust in science, and diminish confidence in elections and democratic institutions. Because these distortions attack\u00a0the rational discourse required for solving the complex problems facing humanity, cyber-enabled information warfare aggravates other major\u00a0global dangers\u2014including those posed by nuclear weapons and climate change\u2014as it undermines civilization generally.<\/p>\n

There is nothing normal about the complex and frightening reality just described.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Bulletin\u00a0of\u00a0the\u00a0Atomic\u00a0Scientists\u00a0Science and Security Board today sets the Doomsday Clock at two minutes to midnight\u2014the closest it has ever been to apocalypse. Though unchanged\u00a0from 2018, this setting should be taken not as a sign of stability but as a stark warning to leaders and citizens around the world. The current international security situation\u2014what we call the \u201cnew abnormal\u201d\u2014has extended over two years now. It\u2019s a state as worrisome as the most dangerous times of the Cold War, a state that\u00a0features an unpredictable and shifting landscape of simmering disputes that multiply the chances for major military conflict to erupt.<\/p>\n

This new abnormal is simply too volatile and dangerous to accept as a continuing state of world affairs.<\/p>\n

Dire as the present may seem, there is nothing hopeless or predestined about the future. The\u00a0Bulletin\u00a0resolutely believes that human beings can manage the dangers posed by the technology that humans create. Indeed, in the 1990s, leaders in the United States and the Soviet Union took bold action that made nuclear war\u00a0markedly less likely\u2014and that led the\u00a0Bulletin\u00a0to move the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock far from midnight.<\/p>\n

But threats must be acknowledged before they can be effectively confronted. The current situation\u2014in which\u00a0intersecting nuclear, climate, and information warfare threats all go insufficiently recognized and addressed, when they are not simply ignored or denied\u2014is unsustainable. The longer world\u00a0leaders and citizens carelessly inhabit this new and abnormal reality, the more likely the world is to experience catastrophe of historic proportions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY . Press release by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Humanity now faces two simultaneous existential threats, either of which would be cause for extreme concern and immediate attention. These major threats\u2014nuclear weapons and climate change\u2014were exacerbated this past year by the increased use of information warfare to undermine democracy around the … Continue reading 2019 Doomsday Clock Statement<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,76],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-14892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disarmament","category-global","tag-global"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}