2019-03-06
By Chris Johansen, GI Co-editor
In 1945, some of the American physicists who had developed the atomic bombs which had just obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki must have had the thought – ‘Uh oh, what on earth have we done’. A confrontation with the Soviet Union was looming and it was realized that it was just a matter of time before the Soviets, and other nations, would have access to atomic weapons technology. They thus established ‘The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’, aimed at educating fellow scientists, politicians and the general public of the inevitable, even if as yet unrealized, dangers of the nuclear weapons trajectory now embarked upon. And they set about thinking of ways of how to globally manage the existence of nuclear weapons, to obviate their future use.
One method they used to convey the threat was to establish the ‘Doomsday Clock’, to depict how close we were to global annihilation (i.e. midnight). This was designed by Martyl Langsdorf, an artist married to one of the atomic scientists, and first appeared on the June 1947 issue of the Bulletin (see header photo). The clock was then set at 7 minutes to midnight, as it was realized that the Soviets were well on the way to developing atomic weapons. The clock reached a nadir of 2 minutes to midnight in 1953, with a ramping up of the nuclear arms race and the development of even more destructive, thermo-nuclear, weapons.
For those of us who grew up in Australia in the 1950s and 60s, it was rather a weird experience. Intellectually, we were well aware that we could be wiped out by global nuclear war ‒ Australia would not be exempt due to the presence of US military facilities in the country, the drift of radiation across the planet and the likely disruption of weather patterns. In day-to-day life, however, we ignored it, carrying on as if there was no threat. Treating the prospect of nuclear war as something like ‘death’ itself – don’t know when it will happen, so carry on regardless until it does as it is out of our hands. Sort of: ‘Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we … ’.
In the 1960s, when some of us young folks queried this never-ending accumulation of nuclear weapons with the power then to obliterate the planet many times over, we were taken aside, patted on the head and given the following explanation. Our security and defence is assured as long as the nuclear arsenals of our allies (US, UK) remain superior to those of our enemies (Soviet Union, China), who are rapidly building their arsenals. Nothing to worry about as we are going by the theory of ‘mutual assured destruction’ (MAD) – i.e. both sides would restrain themselves knowing that an attack by one side would bring immediate retaliation and thereby mutual destruction.
Never could quite get my head around the MAD theory, but people argue that it must have worked as there have been no nuclear weapons used in war since 1945. I suspect ‘luck’, and perhaps moments of wise council behind belligerent political rhetoric, may have had something to do with that.
However, it was eventually acknowledged that MAD was indeed mad, with the nuclear arms reduction treaties of the 1980s coinciding with the demise of the Soviet Union. The Doomsday Clock reached its least alarming setting in 1991, at 17 minutes to midnight.
Fast forward to 24 Jan 2019; the Clock was set at 2 minutes to midnight, the same as for 2018 and at the most dangerous setting since 1953. Actually, the nuclear obliteration threat seems much greater than in 1953, with nuclear weapons primed for action in around 20 countries (including NATO countries and former Soviet states), and the individual and collective destructive power of those weapons much greater than those of 1953. Several of these countries, who have their fingers on nuclear triggers, are now under the control of demagogues, more likely to react on momentary personal feeling than on the basis of wise council. Previous nuclear arms control treaties are being discarded, such as the US pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which bans missiles of intermediate range. See here for the current rapidly expanding litany of the breakdown in nuclear weapons control, painstakingly negotiated over 40 years or so.
However, in 2007 the Bulletin acknowledged that climate change is an additional factor bringing us ever closer to ‘midnight’. 2018 provided no respite from this approaching apocalypse as greenhouse gas emissions and global warming parameters continued their upward trajectory, and frequency and intensity of climate change-induced weather extremes increased. A report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in September 2018 reset the critical limit for uncontrollable catastrophe from 2°C to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, a level we are likely to pass in 10-20 years on our current trajectory. Further, leaders of some major emitting nations simply refuse to recognize the threat (e.g. US withdrawal from the Paris climate accords), or downplay it (e.g. Australia).
Unrestrained development and deployment of information technology is heightening the nuclear and climate threats. The Bulletin opines: ’In many forums for political and societal discourse, we now see national leaders shouting about fake news, by which they mean information they do not like. These same leaders lie shamelessly, calling their lies truth.’ That is, communications inflaming passions rather than informing reason. And of course, the science of cyber hacking is rapidly advancing, with the potential to enable entry into opponents’ nuclear security systems.
Although humanity may have moved on from the folly of the original MAD theory, to me it seems that we have just modified that theory, to MADDER ‒ Mutual Assured Destruction Driven by Electronic Recklessness.
I really should apologize for burdening readers with this tale of impending doom – but, as I see it, that’s the way it is. And I commend the successors to those scientists who had second thoughts about creating atomic weapons during World War 2 for reminding us of our ‘new abnormal’. If someone can provide me with an intellectually sound alternative interpretation, I’m all ears. But what can we do but keep trying to convince at grassroots level humanity’s new self-imposed precariousness, in the hope of getting political leaders elected that would set about doing something about it.
Header photo: A depiction of the Doomsday Clock first appeared on a 1947 issue of the Bulletin.
Text photo: Operation Castle Bravo test of a thermonuclear device at Bikini Atoll, 1954. Wikimedia Commons
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]