12/22/2023 0 Comments Nuclear time clockWhether or not one lives in one of the nine nations in possession of nuclear weapons, we have all become unwitting subjects of the experiment that began with the detonation of the first atomic weapon. As the time to midnight has drawn closer, the urgency of the threat is intensified. The significance of the Doomsday Clock as a metaphorical time-keeping exercise serves as a graphic symbol of human-made multiplying perils. To counter this recurring dread, coping tools include limiting media exposure, reaching out to others, cultivating compassion and changing your routine. Philosopher Langdon Winner wrote that “during the post-World War II era, in a sense all of us became unwitting subjects for a vast series of biological and social experiments, the results of which became apparent very slowly.”įor those who grew up during the mid-20th century peak of the Cold War, and into the early 1980s, the resurgence of these worries carries a distinct tinge of déjà vu. In the case of a nuclear attack, the future would be altered in a way that becomes inconceivable for us to process. Nuclear weapons prompt a special existential anxiety, as weapons of mass destruction have the potential to eradicate entire cultures, lands, languages and lives. In Europe, fears of COVID-19 were rapidly replaced by fears of a nuclear war.ĭeath anxiety - produced by a fear of dying - is related to nuclear anxiety, and the threat of nuclear war provoked by daily headlines could shape the way we think and act. (AP Photo/File) Apocalyptic anxietiesĪs the Doomsday Clock is now set at 90 seconds to midnight, the situation adds stress to an already anxious global populace. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in southeastern Ukraine was in Russian-controlled territory when a Russian missile damaged a distant electrical substation, increasing the risk of radiation disaster. These are unprecedented challenges to human survival. Layered crises range from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine involving Vladimir Putin’s thinly veiled nuclear threats to the social and economic strains still present at the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our current moment is unsustainable, especially as catastrophic threats multiply and intensify. In 2023, the global crises we are currently contending with have devastatingly broad consequences and potentially longer-lasting effects. Along with the dangerous rhetoric of former President Donald Trump and the global rise of the far right, the stage was set for the 2020s to be a tumultuous decade. The threat from North Korea’s nuclear arsenal entered an alarming new phase. The Iran nuclear deal was abandoned, affecting the geopolitics of the Middle East. relations with other global nuclear powers like Russia and China became increasingly tense. The 2010s brought the world closer to the brink of nuclear war than at any time other than the present. In the 1990s, the world felt somewhat safer for a few years. This move followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty by the United States and Russia. In 1991, the clock was set at 17 minutes to midnight, the furthest the clock has ever been from doomsday. A plasma dome produced by the first detonation of an atomic weapon on Jduring the Manhattan Project’s research in New Mexico.
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