Two Minutes To Midnight: The Doomsday Clock

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists continues to calculate humanity’s countdown to annihilation, but who calculates the doomsday clock and what factors bring us closer to midnight? Robert and Christian explore in this episode of the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow
your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Christian Sager. Robert,
you and I both grew up in the eighties. How
worried were you about nuclear annihilation as a kid? Because

(00:25):
I was terrified of it. It was like constantly being
talked about on the news or in popular culture. It's
an interesting question because, you know, I look back on
it and I remember I think back on threats that
were present in the media or in the conversations of
adults and how they influenced me. Like I remember, I

(00:46):
remember going to church and being in hearing about the
becoming battle of Armageddon and how everyone's gonna have to
fight on one side or the other. I remember being
concerned about that. I remember picking up on some of
the the the Aid's Scare material and thinking like, oh,
how does this affect me? How does this affect the

(01:07):
people I care about. I don't remember being feeling like
the anxiety of nuclear war so much, and maybe I
was just you know, part of this. Part of this
was a time when I was I was living outside
of the US, I was in Canada, we only had
the one TV TV channel, so that might have played

(01:28):
a role. Or maybe I was just you know, removed
enough from the or distracted enough from the the nightly
you know, TV news that it didn't affect me, or
maybe it's an I mean, we're about the same age though,
so I don't know how to what extent that played
into In the past, I've kind of wondered, well, maybe
I was just a little too young, Like I didn't
to to to use the language of Queen. I didn't

(01:50):
quite grow up in the shadow of the mushroom cloud.
You know. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah, well, and I also,
you know, moved around overseas a little bit too, so
that could have contributed to it in different ways as well.
But I definitely remember the eighties being like scary and
then like, you know, maybe it was also just because
of my age, but then in the nineties it was like, oh,

(02:12):
things are okay now, like that there's not as much
of a threat. We can all breathe easy, We're not
going to have to like we don't have to do
the whole stop, drop and roll thing in the cross rooms, right.
I definitely looking back, I definitely see that trend where
there is the nineties, there was this feeling of, yeah,
this is not that big of a threat anymore, maybe
it's even not a threat. Don't worry about it, just
do your thing. But I've always been a fan of

(02:35):
stuff from the eighties in the late seventies, from you know,
the fiction, the music, in the literature, and you certainly
see nuclear anxiety displayed in in that in various ways.
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean we've got, of course Terminator
to Judgment Day. I mean, they are of course talking

(02:56):
about an artificial intelligence bringing about the apoco Ellipse, but
it's through nuclear warfare. Uh. And then the big one
that I always think of is Watchmen, especially when I
think of what we're going to talk about today, which
is the doomsday clock. Now I don't believe this was
featured in the movie version of Watchmen, but in the
comic book version, every issue began with the doomsday clock

(03:22):
blood dripping down the page further and further, and as
you got to the twelfth issue, I think the blood
was covering the clock like all the way or something
like that. But the idea was that the reason why
these events were happening in the story is because we're
inching closer to midnight on the doomsday clock. Yeah. I
you know, maybe when I first read Watchman, I wasn't
for some reason, I never really put one and two

(03:43):
together on the doomsday clock. But yeah, I believe that
there's like a kind of synchronicity of the metaphor there
with Dr Manhattan being connected to atomic energy. He's also
a watchmaker, and he's obsessed with time and taking apart
clocks and putting them back together again, and then the
background metaphor of the doomsday clock. Now here's the thing.

(04:05):
I didn't know the doomsday clock was a real thing
until I was an adult, and actually just recently it
was updated. Now, we shared this on our social media
for stuff to blow your mind, and there was a
lot of comments about it, uh so much so that
we thought this is probably worth digging into because there's

(04:25):
a lot of science behind the Doomsday clock and the
group that manages it, which is called the Bulletin of
Atomic Scientists. So we figured, let's do a dive into that,
explain what that is and see what's going on there. Yeah,
because I feel like there is a lot of confusion,
especially and I don't mean I don't. I don't mean
to vilify people who say didn't read the link, it

(04:46):
didn't fall with the link and read the article that
we shared, because I think we all have to do this.
Where it was so many different pieces of media and
our streams, you just can't click on everything. I don't
understand that. But it's easy without without diving in to it,
it's easy to mistake what the doomsday clock is. On
one hand, you might think, oh, well, this is a
this is a rigorous scientific like um, you know, FIRMI

(05:09):
kind of a contemplation on what the chances of nuclear
war are. Or you may think, oh, this is just
complete political bs. This is just somebody or some group
of people just making some with with political motivation, deciding
how dangerous the current climate is. And the answer is
it's somewhere in the middle. Uh. And but it's worth

(05:32):
taking a look at because while yes, it so, let's
make this very clear right from the top, the doomsday
clock is not managed by any kind of like supercomputer
or device that's calculating things and figuring out what the
exact time on the clock should ye do not confuse
it with an actual atomic clock, which is a you
know a highly precise um time measurement system. This is

(05:56):
and this is something where a human hand is essentially
going to reach up and change time exactly. And it's
fairly subjective. But at the same time, the people who
are in charge of making that subjective judgment call are
experts in their field. And we're gonna go over all
of that. We'll talk about it, we'll talk about the group,
the journal surrounding this, the doomsday clock itself, and then

(06:18):
we're gonna look at some arguments both four and against it.
Uh So, just to back up here in case you
missed it, at the beginning of the bulletin of atomic
scientists calculated that we're even closer to doomsday and they
adjusted the doomsday clock to two point five minutes to midnight.
Midnight being doomsday, meaning the human population will be completely

(06:41):
wiped out by something usually nuclear annihilation. Uh And by
their prediction, we're that much closer to the end of humanity.
This is the closest the clock has been to doomsday
since nineteen fifty three, after the US tested its first
thermonuclear device. Now, why why, why why did they push

(07:03):
it forward? Well, certainly, if you've if you've been following
the news enough to pick up on the doomsday story,
then you've probably been following the news enough to pick
up on all these various other stories. We can basically
reduce a lot of it to sort of to saber rattling,
to the testing of new regimes, to new regimes, uh,
you know, rolling out their stance on the issues of

(07:24):
of nuclear armaments, uh, warfare in general, and international relations. Right. Yeah,
so you know this is going to get a little
bit political here only for the purposes of us describing
why they made this decision. So they cited specifically that
the global security landscape darkened. This is a direct quote,

(07:45):
as the international community failed to come effectively to grips
with humanity's most pressing existential threats, and by that they
mean nuclear weapons and climate change. Now, this was announced
in an op ed to the New York Times. There
are two people, theoretical physicist Lawrence M. Krauss and retired

(08:07):
Navy Rear Admiral David Titley, And they wrote on behalf
of the Bulletin of of Atomic Scientists, and this was
their quote. They said, making matters worse, the United States
now has a president who has promised to impede progress
on both of those fronts. Never before has the Bulletin
decided to advance the clock, largely because of the statements

(08:29):
of a single person. But when that person is the
new President of the United States, his words matter. Now. Specifically,
I believe they're referring to some comments that that the
President has made regarding the arms race. I think he
said something to the fact of let there be an
arms race or you know, will outproduce uh, you know,

(08:50):
the competition in terms of nuclear armaments and if the
if you've been following the news, you know that the
president will say one thing and then he may restate
it later. Yeah, but this response was was coming to
some of the spikes in the rhetoric. Yeah. And this

(09:12):
is stuff that he said on the campaign trail before
he was elected too, So you know, there's a there's
a well documented record of his policy or at least
stated policies on nuclear armament and on climate change. So
these are things that concerned the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Uh.
And you know, even since they made this announcement, he's
continued to say things for this effect. Um. Now, I

(09:35):
would be remiss if I did not mention the Iron
Maidens song two minutes to Midnight, because I believe, looking
back at the time, wine two minutes is the is
as close as we've come. It is, Yeah, and we
are currently two and a half minutes to midnight now.
I there was a listener out there who pointed this
out to me. Actually, when we posted the original story,

(09:56):
he shared the video for Iron Maidens two Minutes to
been Night, and oh of course, And man, this is
one of those instances where I wish we could get
away with playing music on the show because that song
is pretty great and it's perfect as like a as
a theme song for this episode. But go check it
out if you're unfamiliar with it and you love metal. Uh.
And there's all kinds of other popular culture things that

(10:18):
would resonate with this. Uh. One of my favorite songs
that isn't necessarily a big one is the SKA band
Mephis Scopolise has a song called Doomsday that is about
this as well. Oh yeah, I'm not familiar with the
Mephis scoff. Uh. They're silly nineteen nineties ska band. Okay, yeah, well,

(10:40):
you know I already mentioned that. You know that I'm
a big fan of so many things that came out
of the late seventies and nineteen eighties, early nineties as well.
But but some of the big ones that of course
come to I think come to people's mind in addition
to all the post nuke fiction out there. War Games,
of course, Yeah, that's the classic example. Well, the only
way to win the game is not to play. See

(11:02):
this is why I think it was it had such
so much impact on me. War Games is the first
movie I ever saw on videotape really, yeah, Beta Max.
My parents rented a Beta Max machine when I was
a little kid. In the two movies they got for
me were War Games and Star Wars, both movies with
war in the title. But I think with war games

(11:23):
like this probably didn't have that big an impact on
me personally, because I don't think I ever I may
have never seen it in its entirety. I think it's
all of those films that I just later saw parts
of on TV and got the general you know, just
of it. But but it never had the opportunity to
really get its hooks into me like it did for
for other people. Yeah. I mean, as I've said on

(11:44):
the show before, I watched a lot of stuff when
I was five years old that I probably shouldn't have.
This was one of the three that was right when
I was five years old, I saw war games. I
also watched The Shining when I was five years old.
Uh so, you know, well that explains a lot. Well,
you know, I think we were games. I think makes
sense for for some younger viewers. But we in a
previous episode, the Butter episode, we talked about the Butter

(12:06):
Battle Book, Pursus Book and subsequent Turner TV special that
deals with the arms race and deals with the idea
of mutually sure destruction. So really, no matter what your
age was during during this era, there was the potential
to be introduced to the larger cultural anxiety regarding this. Yeah,

(12:27):
it was a period that was rife with popular culture
surrounded by this. And now that we're inching closer to
midnight on the doomsday clock, I kind of wonder if
we're going to see more stuff like this again. Uh,
time will tell. Now you're probably wondering who are the
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists or what is this thing? Well,
the Bulletin was actually founded by some of the people

(12:49):
who worked on the Manhattan Project. These were people who
felt that they could not remain aloof to the consequences
of their work creating atomic weapons. Uh. And they were
the people who the atomic bomb, but then they also
lobbied for its abolition. Now today it's a nonprofit organization
and it has an international board of experts who assess

(13:10):
scientific advancements, then the benefits and risks that they give
to humanity. Now, their stated goal is to influence public policy.
So let's be very clear here, Like they state, and
they say very plainly on all their literature, like, yes,
this is our goal is to communicate and to change policy. Uh.

(13:32):
They describe the bulletin as such. They say, it's like
a doctor making a diagnosis by looking at data, considering symptoms, measurements,
and circumstances, and then coming up with a judgment on
how to treat a condition. And I do have to
throw in here that I I don't think anyone out
there saying in the world is arguing that nuclear war

(13:56):
is a desired outcome or you know, even you know,
we've mentioned in the comments that the President has made
and when pressed on the matter, he has said, oh, well,
nuclear weapons are horrible. You know that this is this
is you know, bad, not good. That he very specifically
uses the term these are bad things. So I don't

(14:17):
think anybody is arguing that that, yeah, let's have a
nuclear war. That sounds like a great idea. The the
arguments come into the balance, and then how do you
reduce etcetera, and then into the political, uh, situations that
increase the likelihood of one of these weapons being used,
because really, we've we've we've been very lucky in the

(14:38):
in the in the regard that there have only been uh,
you know too military uses of nuclear weapons, and of
course they were both both deployed by the United States
the close of the Second World War in Japan. Uh.
Outside of that, we've had, you know, plenty of tests.
We have had some testy situations regarding the are their

(15:01):
their positioning, and their potential use, but we have not
had to suffer any any subsequent users, and we haven't
had to see actual nuclear warfare between or any war
warfare between two nuclear arm nations. Right. Yeah. The idea
here being that the build the up of these armaments
will be a deterrent to various powers to to either

(15:24):
either in the course of their militaristic actions or in
their own armament of nuclear weapons. Right, and it's not
just the United States and Russia anymore. And we'll get
into that. There's all kinds of factors that come into play. UH.
Now The Bulletin is also an award winning journal, and
it puts issues and events into context UH and provides
fact based debates and assessments about you know that, basically

(15:48):
the end of humanity UH. And they have been around
for seventy years. There's lots of other reports and analysis
on their site. Their site is is pretty fantastic in
terms of like layout and all the contents available. UH.
Infographics to their infographics are really good. UM. But there's
also a bi monthly magazine. Now today we're talking about

(16:09):
in terms of like the people who make the decision
about the doomsday clock. We're talking about ten to twenty
people who literally sit in a room for a day
and do the best they can to communicate disaster to
the rest of us. Now, it's it's either once or
twice a year, the board's members get together and they
gather for a one day discussion where they review what

(16:30):
worried them the following year and what they anticipate as
new concerns. They don't use devices or computers to calculate this.
This is just experienced, expert adults trying to come to
a consensus. There's no algorithm that is deployed here exactly.
So you may be wondering, well, who are these people,

(16:50):
what are they so expert at? And that this is
you know, maybe going to be a little dry. But
I want to go through the list of the current
people so you have an idea of who who's making
this decision now. The current membership of the board. It
is the Science and Security Board for the Bulletin of
Atomic Scientists UH, and they're said to also consult widely

(17:11):
with their colleagues across a wide variety of disciplines before
they get together to make decisions about the doomsday clock.
So let's go through these here. Okay, So the first
is Lynn Eden, she's one of the co chairs UH
and she's a research scholar at Stanford University who studies
military and society, science, technology and organizations, as well as

(17:34):
nuclear weapons history and policy. Of Next, we have Robert Rosner,
co chair, Professor of of of Astronomy, Astrophysics and Physics
at the University of Chicago. There's rod Ewing he's a
professor of Nuclear Security and Earth Sciences at Stanford University.
Then there's a Steven kartha senior scientist at Stockholm Environmental Institute.

(17:55):
Focuses on technological and policy options for addressing climate change.
Their herb Lynn uh this is a senior research scholar
for cyber policy and security at Stanford University. You're seeing
a trend here. There's a lot of people from Stanford there.
Next is a Suzette McKinney, former Deputy Commissioner of the
Bureau of Public Health Preparedness and Emergency Response at the

(18:17):
Chicago Department of Public Health. She's an expert in emergency
preparedness efforts. Steve Miller is the director of the International
Security Program at Harvard University. Now, next we have Raymond T.
Peter Humbert. This is professor of physics at the University
of Oxford. Specializes in how climate works. Rama murte Raja Rahman.

(18:40):
He's a professor of physics at Joel Harlal Nehru University.
Next we have Jennifer Sims. She's senior fellow at the
Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a consultant on intelligence
at Homeland security. Susan Solomon is a professor of environmental
studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Techno Oology. She's actually

(19:01):
one of the pioneers in the work that explains why
there's a hole in the Antarctic ozone layer, and she
specifically specializes in climate science. Next, we have Richard Somerville,
Professor of oceanography at the University of California, and his
focus his climate systems. Sharon Squassani. She's the director of
the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Center for Strategic and

(19:23):
International Studies at Washington d C. She specializes in nuclear
non proliferation, arms control, and security policy. And then we
have David Titley, Professor of Meteorology and International Affairs at
Pennsylvania State University, a former naval officer with the rank
of your admiral who used to work in the Pentagon. Okay,
so we've gone through that list. That is clearly a

(19:46):
list of people who have a lot of credentials under
their belt. Right It's it does not seem like a
list of I mean, I think we've got like a
little of her ten people. There's probably twelve or thirteen
of them here. They're not just whimsically going to say
something like we're two minutes away from the world ending. Right,
it seems like, uh, yeah, maybe they have rhetorical agendas,

(20:07):
but they are all experts in fields like uh, nuclear
non proliferation, military, uh, climate change, and and a growing
thing that they're looking at his cyber security. Right. And
then yeah, there's not a single celebrity or or you know,
isn't on the doomsday clok committee. Okay, let's take a

(20:30):
break and when we get back, let's really dive into
what the doomsday clock actually is. All right, we're back.
So everyone has probably seen a picture of the doomsday
clock thus far, if nothing else, it should be the
lead art for this episode on the website Stuff to

(20:52):
your Mind dot com. But but beyond that, beyond just
what it looks like, what is the doomsday clock? Okay?
So it was originally funded by, as I mentioned before,
people who were involved with the Manhattan Project, and one
of the Bulletin's members was a nuclear physicist named Alexander
Langsdorff and his wife, Martl. She was an artist, and

(21:14):
when they were coming up with this journal for the
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, she created a clock symbol, and
she said it to eleven fifty three for the cover
of the group's magazine. Now, she did this, she said,
because quote, it looked good to her eye. So there
was no there was no reasoning behind why it was
at eleven fifty three on the very first issue, which

(21:36):
just more like, yeah, this, this feels about right exactly
in nineteen nine, however, her husband reset it four minutes later.
Since then, this group has been around for seventy years
and they've used the clock to draw attention to worldwide
crises that they believe threatened the survival of the human species.
And their focus is almost entirely on the availability of

(21:58):
nuclear weapons and the world powers that are willing to
use them. So they kind of they describe it as
such as they say, it's a symbol obviously, but it's
a symbolic intersection of art and science, and its goal
is to get people to talk more about nuclear weapons. Basically,
you know, I think I think it's easy to say
this now, like especially since like what we were saying

(22:20):
with the nineties, it kind of was like, oh, the
Cold War is over. Who I don't have to worry
about that? Being a think the clock itself went to
something like seventeen minutes. Yeah. Yeah, nineteen one was the
most optimistic position it ever was at, and it was
seventeen minutes to midnight. Uh. Now the clock itself is
wavered between that seventeen minutes and two minutes. Uh. Since

(22:42):
its inception in seven The time itself, like we described,
as determined by this board of scientists and nuclear experts
who meet regularly. But ultimately, yes, this is a political
tool for communication. But here's the thing. It works. The
last few times they've announced a change of the clock,
it has been not only international news and that it's made,

(23:03):
you know, headlines and every major news outlet, but it
is also trended on Facebook and Twitter, so people talk
about it. It works. It gets people to think about
what's going on with nuclear weapons. Now the hand itself
has been reset twenty two times. It used to be
that the bulletins editor decided when the hand should be moved.

(23:25):
And his name was Eugene Rabinovich and he was a scientist.
But when he died in nineteen seventy three, that Science
and Security board that Robert and I just went through
with you, they took over, and like I said, they
meet twice a year to discuss world events relating to
the clock, and the last time it was moved before
this most recent one was in uh. Two minutes were

(23:49):
taken away to express the bulletin's dissatisfaction with world progress
on climate change and nuclear weapons. So they have four
criteria that they currently used to determine the status of
the clock. The first is obviously the possibility of major
conflict between nuclear states. Then there is and this is

(24:11):
relatively new, out of control climate change. The third is
risks of civilian nuclear powered disaster, especially when it relates
to waste storage. Okay, this this tying in of course
to accidents such as that at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
Yeah exactly, yeah uh. And then the fourth and final

(24:33):
one is they're looking at emerging technologies like genetically modified
pandemics or destructive artificial intelligence. So ultimately their focus here
is about any kind of species wide catastrophe, no matter
what its origin might be. Now in their site, they
have this thing that's called the doomsday dashboard that I

(24:55):
have to say, like, I think that there's like a
certain amount of cheekiness to this too, write like maybe
that's just me, but I like the idea of like
the doomsday dashboard. You know, it's just kind of it
feels jokey, but at the same time as obviously the
most serious you can be about a possible topic. Right,
I mean, they're they're simplifying all of this into this

(25:16):
one simple and in doing doing that, there you know,
there's the value of some of simplistic and direct communication
via symbolism. But in doing so, I mean they are
realizing that they're boiling it down. Yeah. So this dashboard
is a little different from the clock and that it
accounts for the amount of global nuclear weapons, the security
of nuclear materials around the world, the amount of nuclear

(25:39):
materials that are stored, the rise in the sea level
and the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, as well as
the difference in global temperatures in the minimum amount of
Arctic sea ice that we currently have. So it's this
big interface that shows you all those things, basically keeping
track of all of the modern woes, especially that came

(25:59):
out of indoors box, right and kind of and and
cared for or at least of, you know, by an
organization that it will at least founded by individuals who
played and arguably played a role. So the thing here
basically is they study events and trends, They tracked numbers
and statistics. They also account for world leaders and citizen

(26:20):
efforts to reduce these potential dangers. They also recognize that
nuclear energy and climate change are intertwined, so they say, well, yeah,
of course some people advocate for nuclear power to reduce
carbon dioxide emissions. So they recognize that there's kind of
like a given take there, and then you need to
pay attention to that. So why are we currently at

(26:42):
two point five minutes to midnight. Well, we gave you
their their stated answer, you know, in their op ed
piece earlier. But here's a couple of listed items, basically
bullet items that are of concern to them and I
would imagine to all of us. So the United States
in Russia together possess more than nine of the world's

(27:03):
nuclear weapons, and we remain at odds in a variety
of theaters. Now, obviously the US and Russia aren't facing
off one to one, but examples include Syria, the Ukraine,
and the borders of NATO. Uh, there's also you know,
both of these countries continuing to modernize their forces with
little arms control negotiations. So as of this recording, what

(27:24):
was it last week? President Trump announced that there was
he was going to increase a massive amount of spending
to the defense budget, So you know that that's in
line with this. Now North Korea is another factor. They
continue to conduct underground nuclear tests. They're giving indications that
it would keep trying to develop a nuclear weapon, one

(27:47):
that has delivery capabilities. So we're talking about I C
B M S here. I believe Pakistan and India continue
to threaten each other with nuclear warfare. Now they're facing
off over the line of controlling Kashmir. Now. The Bulletin
of Atomic Scientists also adds that climate changes outlook looks
somewhat less dismal than it used to, but only somewhat.

(28:09):
They say that's a direct quote, uh so steen warmest
year on record, and sixteen of the seventeen warmest years
on record have been recorded since two thousand and one,
so that's of concern to them. They say climate change
is a risk to human health and has adverse effects
on our food availability. They also include within all of

(28:31):
this the rise of nationalism worldwide, as well as both
President Trump and Vladimir Putin's comments about the use and
proliferation of nuclear weapons, as well as uh. President Trump's
disbelief in the scientific consensus on climate change. In fact,
the US is scheduled to spend between one hundred billion

(28:52):
and one trillion dollars on retrofitting nuclear weapons for another
four decades of service. Uh. I was just watching the Expanse,
the show that we've talked about on on Stuff to
blow your mind many times. They fire a bunch of
nuclear missiles into outer space at one point, and I
believe that it is supposed to represent the if not

(29:14):
the entirety, then at least the vast majority of Earth's
and nuclear arsenal is launched in that in that scenario. Yeah,
it really made me think on this. Okay, So the
bulletin also see, you know, Trump's rhetoric as a disregard
for scientific expertise, and they say this is a growing problem.

(29:34):
Here's some additional factors as well. They say, the Russian
cyber attack on the United States political system, the gene
editing tool Crisper. Uh. So we've talked about this on
this show and in other How Stuff Works media. Basically,
the idea here is that CRISP, Crisper could possibly make
it easier to produce biological weapons. And then they also

(29:55):
listed the rise of quote fake news. Now, when they
probably released this thing, they weren't as sick of the
term fake news as the rest of us, and honestly
me personally, I'd prefer to use other terms like disinformation.
But yeah, the the term has become muddy, even muddy
or since we first talked about it in our episode,
is social media driving me crazy? Because it's kind of

(30:18):
been it's it's it's kind of been co opted, so
now it is uh, it's um, it's an insult that
is leveled at reputable news sources as well as intentionally
confusing or inaccurate reports. Yeah, so some of you are
probably listening and you're going, wow, this is really heavily

(30:38):
waited on the climate change thing. I'm not necessarily a
believer in that, or maybe you are, but um, but
what does it have to do, you know with nuclear annihilation.
Here's where I kind of fall on this thing, which
is that even outside of scientific reason I've always thought
about climate change is being similar to Pascal's wager. You
know that Robert Pascal's wager um basically on the belief

(31:02):
of God and the ideas. You know that as a
rational person, I think if climate change does exist and
we fight to stop it, well we're going to experience
more gains and less loss. Right. But it's a probability gamble. However, I,
as a science communicator, do believe in the science behind

(31:23):
climate change. Don't get me wrong, But so to me,
it's like it's similar to the belief in God, and
that it's it's it's not about science or religion as
much as like, you've got to think of it as
like a rewards and risks game, right. Uh. And hey,
you know what if I take up my recycling and
I'm a little bit better about my carbon footprint. Uh,

(31:44):
and it's a it's a little bit of a strain
on my lifestyle. Sorry, you know what, I'd rather do
that than boil alive. Yeah, and you know, and and
just to drive home the important thing here too, there
is a scientific consensus that yes, climate it is occurring,
and that that humans um are are are the if
not if are a major factor, if not the major factor,

(32:07):
uh in its spinning out of control. Uh. Now, I'm
sure there's of you out there who have your doubts you.
I'm sure you have an expert or two that you
whose opinions you turned to. I'm sure you have a
list of pre prepared problems with with climate change, but
you really can't argue with the fact that this is

(32:28):
the scientific consensus. And if you were going to if
you're if you're gonna work outside of scientific consensus, then
that is that is ultimately an a logical choice. Yeah,
and so look, like the reason why I'm addressing this
here is I know that this is contentious. I know
that we have some listeners who are probably going to
write us in about this and say, I can't believe
that you guys sided with this group that believes in

(32:50):
climate change, right, And I know for a fact that
when this episode goes up on Facebook that there will
be dozens of comments, probably about how this is all
a scam. But look, we have to address it. That's
what I believe. This is where we are at with
scientific consensus. This is a show about how science is
used in our world, and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

(33:12):
is a group of experts. Yeah, I mean, ultimately you
have to if you, well, what am I gonna side
with if it's not scientific consensus. Am I gonna side
with political consensus and I'm not gonna side with religious consensus.
I really haven't seen much in the way of I've
seen religious arguments for combating climate change, but I haven't
seen much in the way of religious arguments that that
that human uh created climate change is not occurring. So

(33:35):
I don't really think even have an option in that
direction if I chose to go that way. Yeah, yeah,
exactly so and and and again. We're gonna get back
into this again in a later section because there is
a strong argument against the bulletin of atomic scientists that
will will relate to you later. I just wanted to
set that up as we were talking about the climate
change stuff. Now, historical events have edged us this close

(33:58):
to the doomsday midnight before. In fact, in nineteen forty nine,
when the Soviet Union tested an atomic bomb and the
nuclear arms race began, that was one time. Then also
in four when American Soviet relations deteriorated and deployed, they
both deployed short range missiles around Europe, and that's again

(34:18):
right around prime time for you and me as little kids. Uh.
And in nineteen fifty two when they both tested thermonuclear
hydrogen bombs. That's the only time it's ever been closer
to midnight than right now. So here's some nightmare scenarios
that they pitch the Bulletin of atomic scientists that could
edge us even further. One is a NATO war with Russia. Yeah,

(34:42):
that would be horrible. Two is an American conflict with China.
That would be horrible. Three is an erratic launched by
North Korea, meaning they're nuclear missiles. And we got it
was like two or three days ago. Wasn't they do
this all the time? North Korea like erratically has some
missile fly off into the and well, you can, you

(35:02):
can say erratic. But but also my understanding is that
there are certain military operations that go on every year
between with the US and South Korea and this they
always do something to sort of speak out and to
protest the events, and this is the latest version of this.
In fact, I think I read this morning on my

(35:24):
way into work something about you know, China basically said like, hey,
North Korea, cool your jets. United States and South Korea,
can you kind of slow your role with the military operations.
You know, they're trying to be the logical ones in
this well, at least on the face of it, all right,
And another horrible scenario they predict as a war between
India and Pakistan. And the final one would be if

(35:48):
ISIS was somehow nuclear enabled. So all of these are
things that they see as complete nightmare scenarios that could
you know, push us even closer to midnight. The Bulletin
themselves also called upon Trump and Putin to use their
quote friendly relationship to reduce nuclear weapons stocks. So I

(36:09):
think that was kind of funny. Actually, I mean, given
all this, you know, we joke about it. S n
LSO is doing some kind of gag one way or
the other about Trump and Putin. But you know, yeah,
I mean, to take a step back from all of it,
it is a bit ridiculous that that we're in this
scenario where there's so much talk about these two uh,

(36:31):
these two uh governmental heads being in collusion with each other,
and yet the the arms race rhetoric has has increased ramping.
You think you think that we that we'd at least
get the side effect of of of calm, calmer nuclear relations,
but we can only hope. Thus this is the world

(36:51):
we live in. Okay, let's take another break, and when
we get back, we're going to introduce these arguments about
whether or not we should believe in the doomsday clock
or not. Alright, we're back. So you're you're scrolling through
your Facebook feed and you you you make out the
you know, the unmistakable symbol of the of the doomsday clock.

(37:16):
Should you click on it? Should you not click on it?
Should you give it a thumbs up or a smiley?
Should you give it the frowny face, the angry face,
or just the sad face? How should we react to it?
So we've already presented to you how they come about
their their decision making of of where the hands on
this clock reside, right, Uh. And you can, you know,

(37:39):
judge for yourself whether or not you think that's logical.
But there is an argument against it presented by a
guy named Tom Nichols. Uh. He is a professor of
National security affairs at the U. S. Naval War College,
and he says that, yes, the bulletin was right to
remind us of the problems with nuclear weapons during the
Cold War. He says, actually says, look, this is a

(38:00):
great and venerable journal. Even though I don't necessarily agree
with their politics, but he argues that the world today
is much safer, and so he dismisses the addition of
climate change to the doomsday clock, and he calls it notional.
He says that scientists involved in this are catering to
a liberal audience and that they have concerns such as

(38:22):
quote being mean to each other, so he says the
clock itself means nothing. He compares where the clock was
set to historical events and he argues that we're safer
now than we were in and that's when the clock
was set at its best. So this is his argument.
He also says the clock is quote simply theater, uh,

(38:44):
and that it's designed to create a sense of urgent
worry about these things that the scientists think we need
to worry about. On this, I'm not going to argue
with him that. I'm sure the Bolton would too, and
they are pretty clear about saying like, yes, this is
a communication proping and a tool for us to get
people to start talking about these problems, and it's it's
also yeah Worth pointing out that even even when when

(39:07):
the clock was at its best, you still have nuclear
states and there's a perceivable path to a potential nuclear
conflict or nuclear detonation that's always there just by virtue
of having armed states. UH. This would be content for
a later episode, but I was I was reading recently
about UH computing errors that have occurred here and there

(39:29):
regarding the systems that manage uh the nuclear armaments on
on both sides, and that is terrifying. Yeah. Yeah, I
I left some of those notes out, but that's absolutely
true that that there have been computing errors that basically said, oh,
somebody just launched a bunch of missiles at US, and
it was only because there was a human being there

(39:50):
who who was able to recognize that there was a
malfunction and say, no, that's not actually happening. Do not retaliate. Yeah,
at all points, the technology is fallible and the humans
involved are fallible, and you just gotta hope and pray
that that they're not not both fallible at the same time,

(40:10):
because that's when when when the clock starts moving again.
But nichols argument is that scientists since the end of
World War two have been trying to figure out how
to translate their intelligence in things like chemistry and physics
and earth sciences into political powers. So he's basically saying
that they're trying things like the doomsday clock are an
attempted as a power grab by science. Uh. He argues

(40:34):
that there are good reasons for leaders to reject scientific advice.
And this is his direct quote. It's easy to be
a fan of scientists running things as long as your
own guys doing the sciencing. But scientists can be wrong
about politics in all kinds of ways. Uh. And then
it all comes down to this. He has a particular

(40:56):
bone to pick with Leon Cooper, who is a person
that's involved with the bulletin. I think he used to
be on the security UH membership team, and the two
of them apparently had a nasty debate with each other
at Brown University. So he wants the bulletin to change
the clock back to being only about nuclear danger, and
that they should take out climate change, artificial intelligence, and

(41:19):
you know, genetic modification. Either that or he says they
should just retire it in general. UM. Now, I would
like to point something out here. The article in which
he wrote this was published in January, and within it
even then he said, God help us if Donald Trump
is elected and controls our nuclear trigger, so he may

(41:43):
you know, we don't have Nickels here in the room
with us. But he may have a little bit of
a different answer today because of you know, how they've
adjusted the clock, and he whether or not climate changes
on the board certainly were we've edged a little bit
closer and turns of nuclear armament. So this is my

(42:04):
counter argument on this, because he says things like, oh, well,
they're concerned about things like being mean to each other. Well,
you know, Joe and I just did this two part
episode where we talked about animal intelligence and we compared
it to humanity, and I'm far more concerned right now
about humanity's recent lack of empathy and how that's going

(42:25):
to contribute to our moral decision making progress. You tie
that into technologies of death like nuclear weapons or genetic
modification or artificial intelligence, all these things that the bulletin
lists above. I'm not so dismissive of those things. Yeah,
I mean, I would agree all of these these aspects
of humanity are interconnected. Our technology, the way we view

(42:49):
each other, the way we treat each other, the politics,
the science, and I think it it Uh, yeah, it's
it's counterproductive to want to just say, like you to
to fall back on some of the arguments here presented
by Nichols, the idea that we should only look at
at this in a political sphere only, yeah, or or

(43:10):
that the scientists are saying they only want to run
things from a scientific perspective. These are all interconnected. There's
there's there's no avoiding that. Yeah. And the Bulletin themselves
address this by saying, uh, you know, sometimes they're asked.
They even have this on their f a Q page,
what's worse nuclear energy or climate change? And their quote is,
at the end of the day, trying to answer the

(43:32):
question is like standing around in a burning house arguing
about whether it's better to die of smoke inhalation or
from a falling timber. And that kind of gets back
to my Pascal's wager thing, is that it's like, well,
you know, it's a it's a cost benefit rewards risks thing.
So now the Bulletin themselves, they don't as far as

(43:53):
I could find, they didn't, you know, counter argue Nickels.
But they do have an argument in favor of why
climate change is included in the Doomsday Clock, and this
is written by Don Stover and it's available on their site.
She says John Cook, who's a research fellow on climate
communication at the University of Queensland's Global Change Institute, said, quote,

(44:16):
our planet has been building up heat at the rate
of about four Hiroshima bombs every second. Consider that going
continuously for several decades. Then this was reformulated by a
climate scientist, James Hansen, who is a member of the
Science and Security Board, and in Hansen said that climate change,

(44:39):
its excess energy build up in the Earth's ocean and
other heat reservoirs, was equivalent to exploding four hundred thousand
Hiroshima atomic bombs per day three hundred and sixty five
days per year. Now that sounds crazy, right, Like we
all go con now like this just the even like

(45:00):
I can go all right, maybe I see where Nichols
is at with like thinking that this is purely rhetorical.
But Don Stover does a really good job in this
article of breaking down why these are important arguments, Because yeah,
on on the surface of things, I hear those stats
and I think, well, you're talking about like global heat
increases versus the very localized um heat output of a

(45:25):
of a nuclear detonation. It's kind of disingenuous to compare
those two things. Yeah, exactly, But Stover says, okay, is
this comparison accurate. Well, she says Hanson, comparing the explosive
yield and not instant maths of death of a bomb yield, Well,
that's measured in keylow tons of T and T. You

(45:46):
can take that and you can convert it into an
equivalent number of calories for direct comparison with the Earth's
rising heat content. The problem that Hanson argues is that
greenhouse gases reduce the amount of Earth's heat radiation that's
going out into space, So there's a temporary energy imbalance

(46:06):
here on the planet. And they've done the math figuring
out that that totals two point six watts per square
meter of Earth's surface. Now, Anthony Watts dismissed this excess energy.
This is another person who argued against this and said, look,
that's hardly a blip. It only has the power of

(46:27):
one one of a sixty what lightbulb. And that's true.
But then Stover points out the numbers are still right
when you consider the cumulative imbalance over time. So their
example is if you lived in a house and it
had a point six what per square meter of heat
energy that never left the building. It would raise the

(46:47):
heat by four point five degrees per day, eventually boiling
you to death and under a month. That's a pretty
big twinkie. Yes, it is, Dr Bankman. Uh Now, Stover says,
is the comparison effective well. Cook argues that his pronouncement
was effective since it made headlines around the world, meaning again, look,

(47:09):
this is a communications device. Uh. Since misinformation about climate change,
or what he calls sticky ideas, Cook wanted to fight
them with stickier ideas rather than speaking in complex, abstract,
dry language. He wanted to advocate for simple, concrete and
basically emotional rhetoric. But that was also credible, So math's there,

(47:31):
But he also wanted to sort of condense it into
something that was I guess, as we say with in
terms of social media, would go viral. Yeah. So the yeah,
the idea of being here that if you have anti
climate change statements that have to invoke Stephen Colbert's terminology
truthiness to them, like they they they feel like they're
they're accurate, and therefore people cling to them. He's trying

(47:54):
to create things that that both feel truthy and our
truth exactly. Yeah, I think that's his goal here. And
then finally Stover says, well, is the comparison itself appropriate?
And she argues, yes, it is. Climate change is a
manmade phenomenon that is also catastrophic, and she says the
atom bomb is a manmade phenomenon that is catastrophic. The

(48:16):
goal of the bulletin is to spur people to action,
and it seems to be working. Also, she says climate
change does cause mass death by increasing the frequency of
extreme weather events like heat waves and floods, while creating
conditions that make it easier for disease to thrive and

(48:36):
crops to fail. Uh. In fact, it is already estimated
that climate change kills four hundred thousand people annually in
that respect. So I didn't see how she broke those
numbers down, but I'm guessing what she means is that heat,
you know, accumulatively, heat waves, floods, increases in disease and

(48:57):
uh uh, I would imagine starve ation due to crop
failure amounts to that many deaths per year. So all right,
we're Robert and I are going to leave it up
to you audience. We're not gonna tell you one way
what to think or the other about the doomsday clock.
But we've broken it down for you. Now you know
what the doomsday clock is, you know who the people
are behind it, you know how they calculate what it is.

(49:20):
Are we two and a half minutes to midnight? How's
Iron maide In song sounding to us? Now? I mean,
in the end here, regardless of how you think about it,
the the clock is achieving its purpose, getting people to
discuss it, to tease apart the issue, ask themselves, do
are that is what's going on in the world today
making us safer? Do we feel safer? Um? And how

(49:44):
concerns should we be about nuclear weapons? About climate change
and about some of these emerging threats that we discussed
some of the you know, ways more science sci fi threats,
but but as but the threats that are still part
of this, uh, this human invention, things that we've introduced
into the world by opening the technological Pandora's box, if

(50:05):
you will. Yeah, speaking of sci fi threats, I saw
this shirt when I was on the airplane on the
way to Seattle last week. That made me think of
all of this and and I did not realize it,
but it is a quote from Aliens Uh, so I
went and looked it up. This guy on the airplane
that I was on, he was wearing a T shirt
that said no maste piece through superior firepower, and the

(50:27):
image was something like a somebody meditating in a lotus position,
but the person was made up of two machine guns
pointing upward. And so you know, apparently this is a
slogan that one of the soldiers I believe it's Frost
in Aliens has emblazoned on their uniform. Would Frost You're

(50:49):
gonna have to think Frost is uh? Is Frost? The
other guy with the giant machine gun? That's not Vasquez? Okay, okay,
that one alright, a like gatling gun thing. Maybe I'm wrong.
Aliens fans out there are probably screaming at us through
the through the podcast headphones, but um, anyways, so it

(51:10):
came from that. But then you know, this is a
shirt that this guy was wearing basically saying advocating for
the same you know, nuclear proliferation idea here that it's
a deterrence. If we have superior firepower, then that will
create peace because no one will want to attack us. Right,
I don't know if I agree with that. Uh, and
I'm an Aliens fan. Well, you know that that shirt

(51:32):
design reminds me of the cover art for a p
jo Or Rourke book that came out in called Give
War a Chance, And the cover art was the peace symbol,
but the center of the peace symbol was a B
fifty two bomber. Uh yeah, it's ah, I feel like.
But in both both of these cases, the symbol that

(51:55):
the simplification of the message, which winds up with the
symbolic simplification of the the doomsday clock. I mean, these
raised questions about how are we to think about about
nuclear arms? How are you think about about limiting and
decreasing the number of nuclear weapons out there? Because it
everything is interconnected. It's a it's it's a it's a

(52:18):
it's a jinga game of a humanity survival. And yeah,
you can say nuclear weapons are bad, but you can't
just you know, you can't just pull out the jinga
block for one nation's weapons and expect that to it
all be a reasonable response unless everybody else is uh
is is coordinating, coordinating their movements as well. Uh. It's

(52:42):
and that's why we're treking scenario similar build ups in
other countries, right, like, first it was the US and Russia,
then it was India and Pakistan. Now it's North Korea
and South Korea. Like we're going to keep seeing this
kind of build up all around the world, If that's
going to be the logic that we use for trying
keep peace. Yeah, I mean, because ultimately there is a there,

(53:03):
there's a special table you get to sit at. If
you have access to these weapons, it gives you. It
gives you a certain amount of power and in a
certain voice that you didn't have previously. Um. And my
argument would be, even if I did believe in peace
through superior firepower, based on what we were talking about earlier,

(53:24):
if there's either human miscalculation or technological miscalculation, having that
much firepower possibly go wrong, it's not worth it to me. Yeah,
And in aliens it goes, It goes pretty wrong. It does, indeed, Yeah,
it does. Indeed, although I guess we have to blame
the engineers for that or we'll find out an alien
covenant in the UM. So, if you're concerned about this,

(53:48):
if you've heard this episode and you're you've got the
doomsday clock fear, the bulletin says there's three things that
you can do. The first is you can learn as
much as you can about the powerful technology that can
destroy our way of life. Yeah, that sounds like a
fun homework assignment. Uh. Then you can share what you've learned,
either tell people in real life or put it on
social media or something. Uh. And then they say the

(54:09):
third thing is tell your government representatives what your concerns are.
So that's the doomsday clock, that's the bulletin of atomic scientists.
Let us know. Do you believe this whole climate change
is as bad as nuclear war things? Should climate change
be included in the doomsday clock's calculations? And are we

(54:30):
really two point five minutes close to midnight? Or where
would you estimate us on the clock? Yeah? I'd also
love to hear from listeners both younger and older than us,
uh with with their personal take on what it was
like to grow up in the shadow of the mushroom class.
Some of our older audience members uh may have memories
even from from before the advent of nuclear weapons, like

(54:53):
and and our younger listen. We have listeners out there
who came out of the nineties um or or even
even later. Uh. Terrifyingly enough, uh so so I'd be
interested to hear what how, what have you grown up in? What?
What is what is the environment? Then what is the
media been telling you? What have you been picking up from? Uh,
from adults in your life as well as all of

(55:14):
the various media you consume regarding the these threats to
our way of life? Yeah, should we be panicked? All
the ways you can get in touch with us. Then,
there's so many social media channels these days were on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler,
and Instagram. And you should visit stuff to Blow your
Mind dot com. Man, that is a good website. Ah, yeah,

(55:35):
I'm partial to it. That's where because that's where you
find all the episodes of this podcast, as well as
blog post videos and links hotell those social media accounts
that we mentioned earlier. And then if you just want
to write us directly, you can always find us at
blow the Mind at how stuff Works dot com for

(56:00):
more on this and thousands of other topics. Because it
how stuff Works dot com. I think