At the end of January, the clock guards of the doomsday announcement That the world was 89 seconds at midnight, a metaphor for our proximity to extinction. It is a second closer than we have been in the past two years, and the closest to the clock has ever increased from world destruction through human manufacturing risks, including nuclear weapons, of the climate change and new technologies such as artificial intelligence.
The emblematic clock is set by the ballot of atomic scientists, an organization founded by American physicists at the dawn of the nuclear era, months after the United States has exploded atomic bombs in Japan. Monday, the bulletin appointed Alexandra Bell, nuclear business expert, as a new president and chief executive officer. She replaces Rachel Bronson, who played the role for a decade.
Ms. Bell has worked on armament control and non-proliferation problems within the American State Department from the Obama administration, where it was involved in securing the ratification of New startThe nuclear weapon reduction treaty with Russia. She returned to the department as assistant assistant secretary in 2021, promoting dialogue on nuclear issues with nations around the world. In the past two years of the Biden administration, she has led the American delegation of the P5 process, currently the only forum where the United States, China and Russia discuss nuclear risk.
In an interview of last week, Ms. Bell discussed the constantly evolving threats of the day and the role she wants the bulletin to play in the prevention of global disasters. “It is important to listen to the echoes of history,” she said, “informed in the past, but not chained”.
The following conversation was modified by brevity and clarity.
How does an organization of 80 years like the bulletin remain relevant in a constantly evolving world?
When I entered the field, the Doomsday clock was five minutes at midnight. I remember being struck by symbolism. The clock being at its point closest to midnight now is really a warning that we lack time. The fact that he checked a second closer is an indication that every second counts.
We experience an overload of crisis with an aggravated nature of threats. The key is to understand these threats and make sure that we are moving to solutions. It will take work, patience and perseverance, as well as a large request from the public, to respond to these concerns.
Hopefully the Doomsday clock attracts people to help them understand the emergency of the moment. There is no unique and neat solution. But there are things we can do to get away from the edge.
How does this era of nuclear risk differ from the past?
Nuclear threats are in exposure lively for the first time, really, since we moved away from the disaster in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The United States and Russia are not in a sustained dialogue on the way to stabilize the nuclear risk. China has embarked on a Expansion of their nuclear forces. Iran has The potential to create nuclear weaponsAnd North Korea continues to flout international law, threatening its neighbors and developing its nuclear arsenal.
We also have structures that we have spent the last 50 years to build now by collapsing under us. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which has retained the wave of nuclear chaos, is under constraint. The next steps that we were supposed to take to reduce the nuclear threat, such as the full treaty of the ban on nuclear tests, have not yet come to happen.
I am sure that people living through the greatest war would have thought it was simple. But looking back, it was a bipolar conflict – it was the United States and the Soviet Union. Now it’s more complex.
There are no quick solutions here. This time, it will not only be nuclear experts alone who offer solutions. We have to speak with IA, quantum, biotechnology and climate change experts. These risk areas overlap and require coordination that we have not yet controlled. But this cross pollination of the expertise will be the key to how we manage these threats.
The imminent threat for most people today seems to be climate change rather than nuclear weapons.
You are right, the younger generations do not think so much of the nuclear threat. We have done a good job to reduce this threat, but it has never disappeared. In some respects, it becomes worse. It is more complex, more diffuse, and there is not as much attention to this subject.
The nuclear problem is a question of minutes. Intercontinental ballistic missiles in the United States or Russia can reach anywhere in the world in about 33 minutes. If we find the nuclear problem, nothing else matters.
Climate change is a longer term problem. And the potential conflicts that could result from it, such as mass migration, can increase tension. More nuclear weapons with conflicts related to the climate means that the probability of increasing nuclear war increases. These threats are linked. More reason reflecting on the two at the same time.
What have you thought so far about the management of the new presidential administration?
I was delighted to see President Trump’s comments in Davos on the reduction of nuclear threats. It was encouraging. But it is also withdraw from the Paris Agreement. It’s a step in the wrong direction.
Hopefully the administration will see that there are economic and security advantages in the United States which are continuing a transition to greener technology.
I hope there is recognition that climate change is not a question of belief. This happens. You can choose not to believe it, but I guarantee that your insurance company believes it. When it starts to have an impact financially across the country, they will look at their leaders to do something.
In what ways do you hope to shape the work of the bulletin in the years to come?
The bulletin is trying to facilitate a public calculation with an existential risk of human manufacture. It was an increasingly exclusive conversation, and I don’t want it to be that. I want people to understand why it is so important and why they participate.
I come from Toxedo, NC – A place without felt. My people ‘house obtained 40 inches of rain in two days from Hurricane Helene. The ravages caused by a changing climate occurred in a place like my hometown. How to connect these people to the conversation on the prevention of this? It is our work to make sure that they are as much as the people of the Beltway.
It can be easy to review these challenges and go to a dark place. The hardest thing is to let these challenges drive you. My mother is from Finland, and we are still talking about this Finnish philosophy of “Sisu” – an unstoppable grain in the face of extreme adversity. We need more sisu in this area. We inherited a waste and we have to work together to clean it.