On January 26th, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced that the Doomsday Clock moved thirty seconds closer to midnight. The Doomsday Clock is now two and one-half minutes to midnight, marking the closest it has been since 1953 when the United States and USSR tested their first thermonuclear weapons. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a rise in nationalism, President Trump's concerning comments on nuclear arms and climate change, increased global security threats paired with "increasingly sophisticated technology and a growing disregard to scientific expertise" are among the factors that moved the clock forwards.
Nuclear weapons and climate change pose undeniable threats to the continued existence of life as we know it, issues President Trump has made disconcerting comments on. During the US presidential race, Trump made comments about expanding and potentially deploying the American nuclear arsenal. President Trump has also expressed disbelief in the severity of climate change and the extent to which it is man-made. Additionally, several of his secretary nominees have either disputed or questioned climate change.
The fear of nuclear weapons was also a major factor in the decision to move the clock thirty seconds closer to midnight. According to the Washington Post, a group of 50 former national security officials stated that they feared Donald Trump becoming the president, partly because it would give him command of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Weapons of mass destruction are not toys and threats should not be made idly.
Furthermore, with the rise of nationalism there may be less interest in multilateral action needed to tackle issues with such complexity. Climate change requires international cooperation because it cannot be confined inside borders. Although climate change affects certain areas disproportionately (i.e. coastal cities and less developed countries), in a globalized world it is naive to disregard the short-term and long-term consequences of climate change. Growing nationalism could isolate countries from IGOs, both politically and fiscally, which could hinder wide scale action from taking place. The Paris Climate Agreement was a step in the right direction but it must extend past words on paper and the United States is a crucial player.
Unchecked climate change and nuclear warfare have the potential to be far more detrimental than disasters we have encountered in the past. It is pertinent that global citizens are attentive to the most pressing existential threats so that the doomsday clock does not move closer to midnight.
The urgency to reverse the negative effects of climate change and the global nuclear arms race that your post conveys, makes me question if it is appropriate to compare the impacts of nuclear warfare to climate change. How is the severity of both measured and which do people feel more threatened by (I would guess nuclear weapons). Also what tools are used to measure the impacts of nuclear warfare compared to those used for climate change. And, what has the recent Marrakech conference done to further the Paris Climate Agreement's goals, thus far? Many agreements do take a long time to implement, but because climate change is ongoing and seems to be in the background compared to most events occurring in the world. Is this a possible reason why it takes a longer time to carry through with?
ReplyDeleteI would agree with you, in some respects, Nilaya. I agree with your supposition that it is due to the fact that climate change seems to be in the "background" compared to some of the events in the world. However, I disagree with the statement that more people feel threatened by nuclear weapons. One of the reasons that I believe this is because a large number of people believe that if nuclear warfare does begin to occur, all people will perish - or at least the majority. Another reason I believe this is because millions upon tens of millions of individuals are already feeling not only threatened but terrified due to the impacts of climate change. For many, their vulnerability is in part due to the fact that the mainstream media does not share their story, it's not sensational, or unexpected. The trials of international cooperation is one possible other reason why I think it's it is so difficult to solve. The climate is a communal thing - the tragedy of the commons is an issue, here.
DeleteI'm super interested in looking into your primary question regarding how the severity of both climate change and nuclear warfare is measured. That's such an interesting question and relates to some of the things that we were were talking about in class. For example, how we define disaster. If we have a severity scale - would some occurrences be labeled a disaster and not others - according to the scale?