RANT: TICK-TOCK, TICK-TOCK.

 

"Physical scientists have now found means which, 

if they are developed, can wipe life off the surface 

of this planet."
-JOHN FOSTER DULLES, Secretary of State,
address before the United Nations
September 17, 1953*

 

 I WAS HAPPY TO LEARN the other week that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ (BAS) Doomsday Clock made it past the 100 seconds to the midnight mark. It had been stuck there for the past couple of years and I was wondering if it needed some WD-40 to lube the springs a tad. It now sits at an edgy ninety seconds to midnight mark. So, the clock is again ticking away into the dark night of our future.

WELL, that last part is a bit bleak, but all-in-all isn’t it time we wrap things up and leave the stage, sweep our stuff into the dustbin of history? We’ve had a good run, we Homo Sapiens Sapiens.  
 

SPEAKING OF WHICH, THERE AREN'T TOO MANY CHIMPS that can claim that moniker! Polypus Sapien, maybe, or Blatta Sapien⁺ might prove to be the front-runners when we’re finally cut from the race (not that we’ll be around to compare notes). But until then, my one complaint with the BAS clock is that it tries to factor in too many possible mega-deaths we’re in line for. It considers, for example, climate change, biological threats, “disruptive technologies”, pandemics, etc. I'll say plainly that I’m old school, and I’d rather the Doomsday Clock (DC) sticks with the traditional nuclear annihilation scenario, the one that prompted its creation back in 1947. BUT I won’t quibble. Whether our precious bodily fluids dry up in the slow heat of global warming or are microwaved in a flash by colliding atoms, we'll still end up in the same place. (But bring lots of sunscreen just in case.)

 

ACCORDING TO THE WEBSITE Arms Control Association:

“Since the first nuclear test explosion on July 16, 1945, at least eight nations have detonated over 2,000 nuclear tests at dozens of test sites, including Lop Nor in China, the atolls of the Pacific, Nevada, and Algeria where France conducted its first nuclear device, Western Australia where the U.K. exploded nuclear weapons, the South Atlantic, Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, across Russia, and elsewhere.”

 

SUCH A LIST IS HELPFUL when planning holiday get-a-ways where you don’t have to pack those bulky, lead-lined undees. It wouldn’t do to have your DNA scrambled because of wayward neutrinos as you're sipping mai tais at the swim-up bar....

 

IT's BEEN INTERESTING to see the Clock move forward and backward in its doomsday countdown over the years: For example, it started our nuclear age in 1947 with a lucky seven minutes to midnight, but by 1953 it had moved ahead to two minutes to midnight. That was when the United States tested a Hydrogen Bomb¹ (AKA “thermonuclear” or “fusion” bomb) on the Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands, followed by a Soviet thermonuclear test blast eight months later.  The clock remained at two minutes to midnight during those years when visions of mushroom clouds danced in our heads. Then, in 1960, it fell back to seven minutes to midnight. The new decade ushered in a Zeitgeist that was more optimistic, with public debate and dialogue centred around the promise for a more peaceful ‘world community’ or something like it:

 

“These are the signs that a turning away from the pat of traditional power policy is becoming psychologically possible. We do not doubt that, as of now, the mainstream of political events is still dominated by traditional thinking and by the inertia of established institutions. The outlines of a new world community are but vaguely discernible behind the traditional structure of divided humanity. Nevertheless, in recognition of these new, hopeful elements in the world picture, we are moving the ‘clock of doom’ on the Bulletin’s cover a few minutes back from midnight.”  (BAS, 1960 Statement.)

 

BY 1963 it moved even further back to a respectable twelve minutes to midnight, despite the previous year’s nuclear near-miss during the Cuban Missile Crisis (February 1962). This time, the Clock's change was due to an agreement between the United States and the USSR of a partial test ban treaty limiting above ground atomic testing and easing tensions between the two nuclear superpowers. HOWEVER, by 1968, the clock had skipped forward to seven minutes to midnight because of the Vietnam War, increasing geopolitical tensions and more countries acquiring nuclear weapons.² 

BUT THE CLOCK MOVED AWAY from midnight again in 1969 chiefly because of the United Nations Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which was signed by most of the world’s countries, including the United States and USSR. The treaty meant signatories would not seek to develop nuclear weapons and would only use nuclear technology for civilian purposes. In addition, those countries possessing nuclear weapons would not transfer such technology to non-nuclear countries. (Fingers crossed.)

 

SINCE THAT TIME, the Doomsday Clock has yinned and yanged between flareups of proxy wars, expanding nuclear arsenals and other nations joining the nuclear club. On the other hand, there were arms control treaties, United Nations intercessions and tamping down  of Cold War conflicts that pulled the Clock hands away from midnight.

ONE OF THE MOST significant treaty agreements, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II (START II) in 1993, achieved a massive reduction in the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia (formerly the USSR). This treaty coincided with the fall of the Soviet Union, and the resulting “peace dividend” that was apparently to follow led to a buoyant, if temporary, period of optimism. In 1993, the Doomsday Clock fell back to seventeen minutes to midnight—the furthest from midnight hour it’s ever been.

 

AS YOU MIGHT HAVE GUESSED, since then the clock hands have drawn steadily closer to midnight, with only a couple of reversals. Wars, the sluggishness in arms reduction, a growing grid-lock in diplomatic initiatives, flaccid climate change legislation, all contributed to a growing pessimism and an increased threat of nuclear war. President Trump walking away from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and his failure to renew the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF)³ treaty in 2019, moved the Doomsday Clock from two minutes to midnight, to 100 seconds to midnight, where it stayed until this year when the Clock again moved forward, marking ninety seconds to midnight.    

 

“In 2017, the Bulletin moved the time of the Doomsday Clock a half-minute closer to midnight, in part because of reckless approaches toward nuclear weapons and a growing disregard for the expertise needed to address today’s biggest challenges, most importantly climate change. We argued that world leaders not only failed to deal adequately with nuclear and climate threats, they increased them “through a variety of provocative statements and actions, including 

careless rhetoric about the use of nuclear weapons and the wanton defiance of scientific truths.” (BAS)

 

WITH INCREASED international tensions, the pandemic, global economic instability, restless populations, and barely addressed climate threats, the Clock moved forward to 100 seconds to midnight by 2018 and remained there until 24 January 2023 when, with war raging in Ukraine and talk of tactical nuclear weapons, it moved to ninety seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been.

SO, THERE WE ARE. On the cusp of Armageddon, we watch from the sidelines while two nuclear powers play a game of chicken in Eastern Europe. Instead of protesting to our governments or taking to the streets demonstrating for peace, we cheer on our side or  else stare into the void. Hopefully Putin's suspension this week of the one remaining strategic arms control treaty (New-START) will not lead to a chain-reaction of ever-increasing threat levels, or we may very well have to leave it for future Blattadean historians to sort out where we cocked everything up so badly.

 

Cheers, Jake.

________________________________________

 

NOTE: I’m glad that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) still uses an analogue clock to count down the minutes to Armageddon. With digital, I’m always left waiting for the other shoe to drop. For me, digital time is a little frightening. It seems to move forward yet remaining unchanged at the same time. The movement through time on a digital clock is unacknowledged. But analogue time (AT) moves though space. We can relate more to it: AT mirrors our daily round. It has hands! On an analogue clock face, every second ticking away (well, digital clocks don't actually tick, do they?) announces: We have arrived! So, when the big hand on the Doomsday Clock (DC) moves towards the midnight hour, well it’s incredibly dramatic and poignant at the same time. Today, when I look at the DC, I think of Big Bens’ bells ringing in the twelve, each vibrating chime like a sonic Tao. Tick-tock time is much more satisfying. BAS, please—don’t change a thing! 

 

* Speech comes one month after USSR tested its first H-Bomb in August, 1953 following the earlier U.S. test in November, 1952. H-bombs are more powerful and lighter devices, making them suitable for missile warheads and projectile shells. The Hiroshima bomb exploded with a force of 12 kilo tons (Kt) of TNT. By contrast, H-bombs can have an explosive power in the hundreds of Kilotons range, even megatons.(More bang for your buck.)

 

+ “Wise Octopus”, “Wise Cockroach”.

 

1. TOTAL number of above ground fission and fusion bomb tests (all countries): 525; underground tests: 1528. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996 stopped testing of nuclear weapons almost entirely. BUT in 2003 North Korea withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and in 2004 it began conducting underground nuclear tests.

 

2. By 1952 Britain had become a nuclear power, with France, China and Israel joining the club in 1960, 1964 and 1967, respectively. India (1974), (Pakistan (1998) and North Korea (2006) became members, as well. BTW India used Canadian CANDU reactors to illegally manufacture plutonium for their first bomb. (Way-to-go, Canada!)

 

3. “The INF (Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces) treaty is the first nuclear arms control agreement to actually reduce nuclear arms, rather than establish ceilings. The treaty entered into force on June 1, 1988. On September 2019, the United States withdrew from this treaty.” (atomicarchive):

 

FUN FACT #1: Strontium-90 is a common radioactive element produced during atomic fission reactions. Years of above-ground A-bomb testing disbursed fallout containing strontium-90 throughout the globe. Seventy years later, the cancer-causing element can still be found in every living human (not to mention animal and plant-life.)

 

“Its 29-year half-life means that it can take hundreds of years to decay to negligible levels. Exposure from contaminated water and food may increase the risk of leukemia and bone cancer.” (Wikipedia)

FOR THOSE WONDERING, the element’s name comes from the Scottish Highland town of Strontian where it was first discovered in 1790 by a local doctor. It is found chiefly in the mineral strontianite, also named after the town.

 

FUN FACT #2:

A Paris swimsuit designer named the now-famous women’s wetware after the Marshall Island’s Bikini Atoll following a thermonuclear bomb detonation there in April of 1954.  Previous two-piece swimsuit fashions (still covering the navel, it must be said) were nick-named “Atome” ('Atom') and were advertised as "the smallest swimsuit in the world". I would imagine that the “bikini” swimsuit is more well known than the island by orders of magnitude. That’s marketing for you!

P.S. TODAY, Bikini Atoll is a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. The native population was removed before testing began in the late 1940s and has been unable to return ever since d/t unsafe radiation levels. (Next millennium, maybe?)

 

FUN FACT #3: The “Castle Bravo” detonation of March 1954 on Bikini Atoll should have been called “The Oopsie”. The 15 Mt “shot” exceeded expected TNT mega-tonnage by two and a half times, causing radioactive fallout to spread over a wide area of the Marshall Island chain, and falling on a Japanese fishing boat, sickening the crew, and killing one fisherman. Oopsie, indeed. [Mt = megaton. Ed.]

FUN FACT #4: For those in the know, the largest man-made explosion (so far) was the 1961 Soviet “Tsar Bomba”. The airdropped H-Bomb created a staggering 50 megaton blast. It  was 3,800 times the explosive size of the Hiroshima bomb.  (Boys and their toys.)

 

FUN FACT #5: In 1985, estimated global nuclear stockpiles stood at nearly 70,000 war heads! Since then, the various arms limitation treaties have brought that world-wide figure down to just over 10,000. The majority of warheads are held by the United States and Russia. NOTE: Currently, there is only one remaining nuclear arms treaty.  Called the New-START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), it replaced the START II Treaty in 2010). Let’s hope they learn to play nice.

 

FUN FACT #6. Oopsie! Spoke too soon: President Putin just announced that the Russian Federation will temporarily suspend itself from the New-START treaty. Putin declared in his State of the Nation speech February 20/23: "With Washington pursuing a 'strategic defeat' of Russia, it made no sense to stick to the deal, he stated.The Russian leader added that the arsenals of the UK and France would need to be accounted for in any future agreement on nuclear reduction." He also said he would honour the terms of the treaty until its expiry date in 2026. (RT) The treaty caps the number of long-range nuclear warheads each side can deploy and limits the use of missiles that can carry atomic weapons.

 

WEBSITES OF INTEREST:

https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/treaties/index.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64390663

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8KNvK-8jrw

 

 

Daniel Ellsberg, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, New York, 2017.

William J. Perry and Tom Collina, The Button, Ben Bella Books, Inc., Dallas TX, 2020.

 

 

    HIROSHIMA SHRINE

 

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