Just following the inauguration of the United States’ commander in chief, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists released its annual report that declared that the Doomsday Clock now rested at two and a half minutes to midnight.
2017 marked the 70th anniversary of the Doomsday Clock, a graphic that made its way into being the international marker for the state of the planet’s health and safety. In a statement from Rachel Bronson, the executive director of the bulletin, she addresses issues the international community with the list of concerns that now affect the clock: climate change, industrial waste and pollution, the threat of future weaponry (i.e. drones and unmanned missiles), political Twitter usage, all in addition to nuclear weapons, which have been a concern since the foundation of the clock.
The bulletin lists climate change and nuclear weaponry as “humanity’s most pressing existential threats.
In a statement to the press, Bronson also listed “the cavalier and reckless language used across the globe, especially in the United States during the presidential election and after, around nuclear weapons and nuclear threats…[and] a growing disregard of scientific expertise” as two causes of the time change.
That was January. It’s September now.
In the past month, a lot of attention is has been paid to the U.S.’s relationship with North Korea. On August 8, Trump delivered a message in vernacular that spread across the news and media outlets and through the internet like a cat on a hot tin roof when he warned North Korea that it “best not make any more threats to the United States.” The president added that North Korea would be met with “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if they continued with their threats.
North Korea responded to Trump’s statement by testing more ballistic missiles, this time with intercontinental range, as he promised in his 2017 New Year’s speech. His tests were met by the president with more incendiary responses.
It was in his address to the United Nations’ General Assembly, that the president made his most volatile and indelible comment on the mounting tension between the two countries. In a speech that was expected to be a declaration of the United States’ right to adopt more isolationism, preparedness to pull support from the UN and Trump’s intention to “put America first,” he announced his stance on many international conflicts, including North Korea’s:
“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing, and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary.”
It’s unclear whether anyone, save the president’s speech writers, foresaw an entire section being devoted to the mounting tension between the U.S. and North Korea, but it’s certain that no one foresaw the unprecedented direct response from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the speech. In his response to the president, Kim Jon Un wrote:
“Far from making remarks of any persuasive power that can be viewed to be helpful to defusing tension, he made unprecedented rude nonsense one has never heard from any of his predecessors… I’d like to advise Trump to exercise prudence in selecting words and to be considerate of whom he speaks to when making a speech in front of the world… I’d like to advise Trump to exercise prudence in selecting words and to be considerate of whom he speaks to when making a speech in front of the world.”
He referred to the president’s speech as “the most ferocious declaration of war in history”.
This year is the closest the Doomsday clock has been to midnight since the U.S. and Soviet Union tested hydrogen bombs in 1953, reports TIME, but does anyone care? It’s meant to give international politics more urgency and a better grasp of how to find and secure peace around the world, but a warning only works if people listen to it.
Right now, it seems the only casualty of the mounting tension between the two leaders both claiming the other “is on a suicide mission,” is the population of people standing between them.
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