Sao Paulo
The spread of wars and the deepening of the climate crisis in 2023 have made the Doomsday Clock the closest thing to the apocalypse since it was created in 1947 by renowned scientists involved in the American atomic bomb program and aware of the era they were creating Apocalypse left the world behind.
The measurement for 2024 announced this Tuesday (23) by the NGO Bulletin of Atomic Scientists refers to the facts of the previous year. The clock continues to show 90 seconds to midnight, symbolizing the impossibility of human life on Earth.
“We continue to trend toward nuclear catastrophe and last year was the hottest in history,” said Rachel Bronson, president of the Bulletin. “But there was some good news. Renewable energy dominates new energy investments,” added organization member Ambuj Sajar (Indian Institute of Technology).
As in 2023, scientists highlighted the risks of advancing AI (artificial intelligence) to global security, including disinformation, and how biosecurity studies and the use of biological weapons could trigger a pandemic like Covid19.
Last year, after two years, the clock moved to what was then the lowest index in the historical series. The main reason was the war in Ukraine, which Vladimir Putin started in February 2022 with a series of nuclear threats against anyone who stood in his way.
Not that the situation was much better: in 2020 and 2021, the clock was already at the worst moment in its history, thanks to the threat of war in Europe, the Covid19 pandemic and the climate irresponsibility of deniers like thenBrazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro ( PL), specifically mentioned as a danger to the planet.
Putin's withdrawal from the last nuclear arms control agreement and renewed flirtations with the possible use of the bomb are described as serious in the bulletin. Added to the bloodbath in Ukraine is the war in the Middle East, at the center of which is the IsraelHamas conflict.
“As a nuclear state, Israel’s actions are relevant to the Guard, particularly if the conflict escalates into a larger conventional war, whether or not other nuclear states are covered,” Bronson said. This is considered an additional risk factor by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Like for example Sheet As it turns out, 2023 was the year of the world's most widespread violence since World War II and the third worst in terms of conflict mortality over that period.
The Cold War 2.0 propagated by the USA and China, which was started in 2017 by Donald Trump and then by Joe Biden and could fall back into the hands of the Republicans in this year's election, is increasing tensions. Conflicts with high potential have also intensified, such as the exchange of nuclear threats between the two Koreas and the persistent suspicion that China will invade Taiwan.
Originally the watch referred to these geopolitical themes, in this case fears of a nuclear holocaust during the Cold War. Names like physicists Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, whose life inspired Christopher Nolan's acclaimed 2023 film, were involved in the bulletin's creation a little earlier in 1945.
In 2007, the Apocalypse Report also began to consider the impacts of the climate crisis, largely linked to industrial carbon emissions and other human actions on nature.
Last year marked a rhetorical turning point in the way countries are dealing with the problem, with 1850 being the hottest year since scientific measurements began. The interconnected waves of extreme heat or cold and the tragedies associated with extreme events have become a constant feature of the news.
In historical terms, more recent topics are discussed. On the subject of AI, the panel that analyzed the risks concluded that, despite rapid technological advances, it is still in human hands, which theoretically ensures a certain level of control.
The same was said about biosecurity, with the caveat that active bioweapons programs in countries such as North Korea and Iran are a concern. “The threat remains,” said Asha George of the US Congressional Committee on the Sector.
Of course, as Bronson and other scientists said when the announcement was made, the outlook is grim. During the Cold War, despite the socalled MAD doctrine (mutually assured destruction, in the English acronym that also forms the word “mad”) between the United States and the Soviet Union, the clock was closest to midnight in 1953. , two minutes.
The most famous crisis of that period, the Soviet missile crisis in Cuba in 1962, paradoxically brought the clock down to one of its lowest readings, 12 minutes to midnight, because the Bulletin believed that its resolution established a new level of communication and deescalation. between rivals. In history, the furthest humanity has come from the end in the symbolic count occurred in 1991, when the Cold War ended and the hands stood at 17 minutes to midnight.
The clock's measurements were only taken annually in 2015. The Bulletin, which publishes several scientific publications on its apocalyptic themes, decides on the marking of the clock each year after two meetings of a panel of 17 scientists from different countries.