The Doomsday Clock

"The world still has approximately over 20,000 deployed nuclear weapons with enough power to destroy the world's inhabitants several times over. We also have the prospect of nuclear weapons being used by terrorists and non-state actors and therefore the problem of nuclear weapon use either by accident or by design ... remains a very serious problem."

Could there ever be a more sober message than that? Yet the message comes from an esteemed group of Atomic Scientists, from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists located at Princeton University, so it is difficult to overlook as the paranoiac rant of the uninformed. That is the group of impressive intellects that, in 1947 created the Doomsday Clock.

Its function was as a device to demonstrate how close the world may be inexorably moving toward a potentially apocalyptic end.

Every time nations and world events present fearsome scenarios on the world scene, the committee of those scientists, a group that includes a number of Nobel Laureates, move the minute hand of the clock either further toward midnight, or back, away from it. Reflecting global nuclear co-operation, or lack of it.

"It is clear that the change that appeared to be happening at the time is not happening, not materializing", said co-chair of the group, Lawrence Krauss, in explaining why, though the minute hand was moved further away from midnight in 2010 with the prospect of global nuclear co-operation that seemed to be manifest with the election of President Barack Obama, it has now been moved closer.

"And faced today with the clear and present dangers of nuclear proliferation, climate change and the continued challenge to find new and sustainable and safe sources of energy, business as usual reigns the norm among world leaders."

When Russia and the United States signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, (START), in 1991, announcing at the time plans for further cuts in tactical and strategic nuclear weapons to come, the clock was moved back to 17 minutes to midnight. But then, a refusal to global action on climate change and increasing nuclear tensions changed all that.

The nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant that occurred cataclysmically in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami double-disasters in March of 2011, focused on the volatility of nuclear power reliance - all the more so when such plants are located in areas so obviously susceptible to natural upheavals.

On the positive side, the scientists cited a few events around the world that gave them pause for hope: the Arab spring, the global Occupy demonstrations, and the recent protests in Russia by people searching for a greater opportunity to live democratically and justly. The START deal between the U.S. and Russia hasn't borne the anticipated fruit, however.

"At a time when there are going to be elections in the United States, in Russia, in France, and a change of leadership in China, there is some uncertainty therefore about the nuclear weapons programs of these countries and the policies that the new leadership will follow", explained a former UN undersecretary general for disarmament affairs.

To the uninitiated, non-scientific mind that takes an interest in following world affairs, it doesn't quite appear that the above-cited countries pose a real risk to the future of humankind. Rather it is the loose cannons, the humanely-unresponsive, belligerent nations of the world like North Korea, Iran and Pakistan, with their nuclear ambitions upon whom the critical potential of failure revolves.

But they are right in stating the obvious, nonetheless: "The actions taken in the next few years will set us on a path that will be extremely difficult to redirect."

"With damage to a nuclear reactor in Japan, the complex issue of the relationship between nuclear reactors, nuclear weapons and sustainable energy production without global warming has become even more complex."

One needn't be a nuclear scientist to agree. Will human prudence and intelligence ultimately prevail?