Angry Planet - It's Later Than You think. The Doomsday Clock at 75

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

The Doomsday Clock is always ticking down. Between climate change, technological advances, new diseases, and the ever present threat of nuclear war … it often feels like we’re close to the end of civilization. How close? According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists … we’re 100 seconds to midnight. The closest we’ve ever been.But what, exactly, is the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and this bizarre clock they oversee? Why, when we imagine the end of the world, do we see a clock ticking down to midnight. Where did this visual metaphor come from? Here to give us the history of the clock and explain how it has permeated our consciousness is Robert K. Elder. Elder is the Chief Digital Editor of the Bulletin and a journalist who has authored many fine books. His latest is The Doomsday Clock at 75. You can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. People live in a world with their own making. Frankly, that seems to be the problem. Welcome to Angry Planet. Hello and welcome to Angry Planet. I'm Matthew Galt. And I am Jason Fields. The doomsday clock. It's always ticking down. Between climate change, technological advances, new diseases, and the ever-present threat of nuclear war, it often feels like we're close to the end of civilization. How close? Well, according to the bulletin of the atomic scientists, we're 100 seconds to midnight. That's the closest we've ever been.

What exactly is the bulletin of the atomic scientists and this bizarre clock they oversee? Why, when we imagine the end of world, do we see a clock ticking down to midnight? Where does this visual metaphor come from? Here to give us the history of the clock and explain how it is permeated our consciousness is Robert K. Elder, who has authored many fine books, his latest of which is the doomsday clock at 75. Sir, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. All right.

So what exactly is the doomsday clock and kind of what components go into it? Sure. Well, first off, it's a metaphor. You know, there's no algorithm that goes into it. It is an opportunity once a year to ask ourselves, you know, is the world a safer place than it was the year before? And the bulletin is special because we talk about things primarily that are manmade. So our assessment only has to do with risk that we can control. And this comes back, you know, to our foundation, which is 77 years ago.

The clock is 75 years old. the bulletin existed two years before that. And it was founded by a Manhattan project scientist at the University of Chicago and supporters like Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer and Eugene Rabinowitz, who is our co-founder and editor. They wanted to have this step back and assessment, not only, again, for nuclear stuff. It started out with nuclear, but we've added climate change in the last 15 years. And that's in line with what the founders talked about because there was a,

a thought pattern that was, okay, nuclear weapons, that is the single thing that can destroy humanity in one fell swoop. But what do we know about the future? Are there other technologies, are there other threats? And Eugene Rabinich called this the, you know, the Pandora's box. And so that's what we're looking at more expansively. So it's not only nuclear. It's not only climate change now, but we also look at disruptive technology, whether that's drones or gene splicing or whatever. We call that a threat multiplier. And so the clock is a chance once a year to look at these man-made threats to humanity's existence and just say, where are we and sort of talk about that. It's a chance for people to get together and have this discussion.

Who are these scientists and what disciplines do they represent? that. So the science and security board are scientists sort of all over. And we have sort of the science and security board sets the clock. But we also have our board of sponsors, which traditionally have been 40 Nobel laureates. And again, it's it's everybody from Einstein and Oppenheimer to, you know, modern day folks like Brian Kreen. And, you know, currently there are 40, no, wait, historically there's 40, There's 11 right now. And then the people who are actually part of the Science and Security Board are experts at the top of their field in nuclear, in biosecurity, in climate change. And so we have all of these experts tracking everything from, you know, carbon levels in the atmosphere to this, this feature that we have called the nuclear notebook where we have contributors who every other month look at a different country and say, okay, what does their nuclear stockpile look? like. Is it growing? How is it being managed? What do we know about it? And so those folks are

our Science and Security Board. And if you want to know any of their names, they're on our websites. And I was going to say, should I name check a few of them? Do you want to hear who they are? Yeah, sure. Let's put some names on this thing. These people that are deciding how doomed we are every year. Yeah. Yeah. So like Lynn Eden at Stanford University. She's at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Rod Ewing, who's part of the Nuclear Security Center at the International Security and Cooperation. And again, these are people with really long titles. So, and I'm not going to get all of them. You know, there's Asha George. She's executive director of the bipartisan defense on bipartisan commission on biodefence. Daniel Holtz just joined as our co-chair. He's been a part of the

Senate Security Board for a while, but he's a professor at the University of Chicago, but also at the Enrico Fermi Institute. You see, there's a ton of stuff. There's a ton of stuff. There's a ton of folks, but I'm trying to. Well, let me, I think that's a good little starter for people. Let me ask you some more historical stuff, if I can. Can you describe the visual of this clock and explain like why a clock, why is it a clock? Why was that the thing that was chosen?

Were other things considered? You know, why? Like, what's going on there? Sure. So it was created in 1947 by this artist, Martil Langsdorf. And she went professionally by her first name, Martil. like Madonna. So she's just Martil. And she was married to a Manhattan Project Scientist. And when they were bringing the newsletter into magazine form, they needed to have a motif on the cover that was repeatable

and that it was iconic. And so she thought up this design. And the idea was that it was, there was a sense of urgency. And she thought like, okay, you know, how close are we now? And I think, again, this is June 147. I think she said it at seven minutes to midnight just because it looked. And then a few years later, they started moving the hand back and forth. And again, it's a metaphor. It's a symbol.

And it's one of these things where, you know, for years, people literally thought there was like a machine or an algorithm. They had this like Stanley Kubrick, you know, vision of what the clock was. And it was also, it was not always called the doomsday clock. It sort of became known as the doomsday clock about 20 years into its existence. But, you know, after Eugene Rabinowicz passed away, and again, he was the one with his editorial board setting the clock. It did not change every year. There have been different changes over time. Part of the value of it is that we get to discuss it.

It's a chance to pause and have people say, did the bulletin of the atomic scientists get it right? Rachel Bronson, our CEO says that over and over. It's a chance to have the debate, to raise the warning. What is the earliest the clock has ever been? And what's the latest? So we say closest and farthest away. So the closest it's ever been is right now. So for the past, you know, this is the third year that it hasn't moved.

And again, that's a sense of urgency set, not just because we have, you know, increasing nuclear stockpiles again. And, you know, we're spending billions of dollars on new nukes and upgrading our arsenal. And that's not just us. That's, you know, an increase with the Russians and with China as well. But also this campaign of misinformation, you see all over and over. It's the misinformation that, again, as my boss says, it's a threat multiplier. Because if you don't have the right information, or you have this sort of authority, authoritarian government and, you know, one person can decide to set off a nuclear conflict. That's extremely dangerous. So right now is the most dangerous time according to the Science and Security Board.

The farthest that it has ever been away was 17 minutes in midnight. And that was after, you know, negotiations with Reagan and then Bush reduced our nuclear stockpile and reduced and put in arms control initiatives with the, with the Soviets then in the 1980s. What would it take to make the clock swing over to, let's say, 10 p.m. I mean, just what changes would need to be made to get, you know, by us a couple of hours since it's been moving just in minutes? Well, I think the Science and Security Board, again, we have a statement that comes out every year that is so detailed.

It's really long. And it's, in fact, you know, we put a bunch of multimedia and it's our most visited page on our website. So the Science and Security Board tells us, basically, You know, we need more stability, we need more leadership, we need more cooperation, more transparency. Hank Green, who was our guest speaker, also talks about the need for people to get involved and to get involved in a real way and to not be, you know, angry or to not be helpless, but to be curious and say, what part of this can I solve and engage? And I think that's the overall mission that the bulletin and the clock serves. You know, it's not a death sentence. It is a chance to change.

And again, it's part of the bulletin's mission statement. Because we created these threats, we have the obligation and the opportunity to reverse them. I'll give you some point by points here from the 2022 statement, Jason, if you want them, which I think would be instructive. Basically, like Russia and U.S. needs to calm down. Everyone needs to start talking to each other and we need to have better arms control arrangements. United States especially has to accelerate its decarbonization and work with China to make sure that it's setting its own decarbonization. The U.S. and others should partner with the WHO to do better monitor biological risks. And then everyone needs to get on a no-first-use nuclear policy.

And again, United States should persuade allies and rivals to, you know, we've got to start drawing down weapons. Like, we talk about the nuclear threats this past year. China, who has been relatively stable at around 300 nuclear weapons forever, started building silos, right? Started making ICBMs. And whenever during the Trump era, Trump would attempt to talk to them about nuclear weapons and getting them to be part of the deals. He was letting deals with Russia lapse because he wanted to loop China in. China would say, hey, buddy, we've got 300 nukes. You have 3,000.

You need to take the first. Of course, Trump didn't do that. and in many ways accelerated America's nuclear ambitions, was talking about bringing back nuclear testing and all sorts of other wild things, deployed the first new kind of nuclear weapon in something like 20, 30 years. This is one I think is really interesting. United States should persuade or United President Biden should eliminate the U.S. President's sole authority to launch nuclear weapons

and work to persuade other countries through nuclear weapons to put in place similar barriers. Basically, you know, make it so that one person in each country isn't in charge of doomsday. And of course it gets into. to weather and climate change and that kind of thing. Yeah, I'm just trying to imagine a 10 o'clock world, you know. I mean, we're, let alone, you know, one in the afternoon. 1991 was 17 minutes and everything looked much, much different there, the Twilight or at the very beginning of the end of history, so to speak. Well, but Robert, I'm killing this metaphor, right?

I mean, I am just killing this metaphor. Well, again, it's so interesting because, you know, it is a trademark of the bulletin of the atomic scientists. You know, the doomsday clock has been that. But everyone kind of adopts its language. It's really interesting, you know, even you hear it in football all the time. You know, oh, it's, you know, it's two minutes to midnight. It's X minutes to this, you know, it shows up all over. And it's actually something that's really interesting because our former, executive director, Kenneth Benedict, points out that the clock isn't in any language.

It's such a powerful symbol because, you know, people can bring their own experience to it and it's easily understandable. But to come back, you know, to 1991, when it was 17 minutes of midnight and we were making progress, you know, I think Reagan was the first to say, you know, nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. And the White House recently, you know, quoted him actually in 2000, actually just quoted him again on January 3rd.

And, you know, John Mecklin, our editor-in-chief, talks about a nuclear bomb being a suicidal weapon. It is not a weapon you can use. It's a suicidal weapon. And I take sort of a personal view of this because from a strategic point of view, I'm from Montana. And, you know, we have a lot of nuclear silos in Montana and Idaho. And I take offense that. from a strategic point of view, military folks refer to my hometown as a nuclear sponge. You know, like, oh, they'll hit the silos first. So that's, that's, you know, Montana and that's those flyover states. That's the nuclear sponge.

So again, I have a real visceral personal reaction against all this. Yeah, there's a reason they built all those I see. BM silos out there, right? To try to minimize the loss of human life in major urban area, which doesn't make the people who live there feel good, I'm sure. No, no, but it's also an industry, especially in places like Great Falls, Montana. You know, that's getting a ton of money. You know, they're getting a cash influx to update their nuclear system.

So it's this weird industrial military complex that Eisenhower warned about. So how has the clock changed over the years? You know, like you've just written this book about the 75-year history of this thing. I've kind of flipped through it a little bit. It's a lot of beautiful visuals and stories. Can we talk about how the clock has permeated pop culture and what it's meant in the 50s, in the 60s, in the 70s? Yeah, yeah. Well, again, up until the last 15 years, primarily a indicator of nuclear risk.

And you see that permeate the culture. And by the way, I should get full credit to my co-author and editor, J.C. Gable, who's also the the publisher had Beard Press is putting this out. And he actually, you know, we, I talked about doing this and it turned out that he knew Martil Langsdorf. He was, he was her friend. And so there's a really wonderful personal essay about her in this. And one of the things, talk about cultural impact, one of the things that she loved sort of into old age was the Simpsons. And the Doomsday Clock shows up in the Simpsons movie. So, you know, it is all over pop culture. You know, in the 50s and 60s, you have not only things.

like Dr. Strangelove, which has the doomsday device and whatnot, but it starts showing up in comics, you know, clocks and the doomsday clock is a part of the watchman. You know, it's part of Alan Moore's iconography. You know, I point out that, you know, how do you know that you're an indelible part of pop culture? Well, when Batman talks about you, you know, in 2017's Justice League, you know, Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne and Ben Batman tells Wonder Woman, say, you know, he says, we tend to act like the doomsday clock has a snooze button. So it has been referenced and, you know, sort of lovingly co-opted in all of these amazing ways, so much so that, again, it's such a part of pop culture that The Clash has a song about it, The Who has a song about it, Iron Maiden,

smashing pumpkins, bright eyes, midnight oil. And we keep finding ones all over. Hozier, the Irish artist, has an entire album inspired by the Doomsday Clock, Wasteland Baby. So, It's really, really interesting to see how it's sort of become both used and abused and inspired. You know, in the Tommy Knockers, which is a Stephen King novel from 1987, he calls it the Black and references, again, the sort of end of time, you know, politics that are going on. So what I loved about doing this book was looking at all the different ways that it's influenced pop culture. Doctor Who episode or, you know, like a really hilarious profane Stephen Colbert bit. And, you know, even showing up on Kim's convenience, you know, like I love that we were a punchline on Kim's convenience. And if you haven't seen it, great Canadian sitcom that's on Netflix. So don't walk,

run to Kim's convenience. It's great. What's your personal history with this thing? When did you become aware of it? And what's your favorite bit of pop culture ephemeral related to it? So I have always known about the clock. I am a reporter by training. I have sort of, my joke is that I have failed upward into management. But, you know, and it's a Chicago institution. So I've all, you know, and as a reporter, I sort of started my career at the Chicago Tribune. So I've always had awareness. I also published an edition of Moby Dick a few years ago. There was an illustrated edition that was illustrated by this artist named Gilbert Wilson from Indiana. And in that, in that book, we reprint actually a essay that he wrote for the bulletin of the atomic scientists about how Moby Dick was a metaphor for nuclear power. And so my awareness of the bulletin and of the doomsday clock sort of hits me at all these different angles. And Matthew, I saw you like squint when I mentioned that. So here's the metaphor that Gilbert Wilson was getting at. So people forget that they were hunting whales for whale oil, which lit all the lamps in London. So not only is it a

natural resource and power metaphor. But it's also, as Wilson wrote, a metaphor for this unknowable, uncontrollable force. So it kind of fits. It fits. And so... All right. I'll allow it. Yeah.

That's how I did it. In terms of my favorite bit of pop culture, one of my joys in writing this book was I got to talk to Dave Gibbons, who is the co-creator of the Watchman. And again, the Watchman is just all over with Doomsday Clock. and clock references in general. So talking to him and, you know, talking about Alan Moore's original, like, notes and how the doomsday clock, you know, is baked into the Watchman was fascinating. And, and again, I'm going to give a spoiler to anybody who hasn't read Watchmen or seen the many adaptations. But when I was talking with Dave, he was saying how

all these weird resonances show up in the in the in the in the watchman comic including and again for those who haven't seen it it ends with this crisis and maybe i won't say what the crisis is but it's a fake crisis that brings the world powers together in fact i think i have to say what the fake crisis is they fake a new they fake an alien invasion that wipes out millions of people in new york and later Dave found out that this was a real discussion. So Mikhail Gorbachev in 2009 talked about meeting with Reagan in 1985. And there's this great exchange in which Reagan said, you know, what would you do if the United States were suddenly attacked by someone from outer space? Would you help us out? And Gorbachev said, no doubt about it. And so it's this really interesting thing where like, you know,

art reflects reality, reflects pop culture, and getting to dig into that with one of the creators of Watchmen was just amazing. I have to ask a Watchman specific follow-up real quick. Did you try to talk to Alan Moore? I did. I did. He's not talking to anybody. Yeah, no, I know.

I just wanted to know if you tried. Yeah, yeah. How grumpy the response was. And in fact, it was a very kind response because, again, my co-author, J.C. Gable actually interviewed Alan Moore at length for Playboy. So he already had an end. He already had. But Alan politely declined.

And again, anybody knows that who has tried to report on this because, again, it's a work of art that he thought that he could take control of again. He felt swindled. And this makes Dave Gibbons sort of, you know, his artist, Dave Givens, it makes Dave sort of the keeper of the flame for watching. All right. All right. All right. We're going to pause there for a break. We'll be right back after this.

Thank you for sticking around. we are back on talking about that doomsday clock. All right, Jason, you had an amazing question that is very good and very important, and I'm sorry. Go. The question is, the ubiquity of the clock metaphor, does it have an impact on its power? I mean, I think people expect it to be at midnight. You mention the clock and you think of 11 minutes to midnight. So where does that leave it?

Does it lose some of its power being, you know, it's just, it's everywhere. It's a metaphor for so many things now. And on top of that, everyone knows that it's bad. No one's ever called at the Doomsday Clock and said, hey, look, Doomsday Clock. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, well, and as our editor-in-chief says, you know, it's called the Doomsday Clock. It is not the puppy dogs and kittens cock. You know, like, but, you know, we find all the time that, you know, not everybody knows about it.

It has been, you know, sometimes again, people falsely use it in their, I don't know, that they try to co-opt it. Let's say that. They try to co-opt it. And it's both a blessing and a curse. Again, it is a trademark. But it's so ubiquitous that that's part of its power. people recognize it. Like, is there another symbol besides Coca-Cola's, you know, trademark or the piece symbol that is more recognizable? You know, and Michael Beirut, who's a legendary designer and

who in fact updated the clock for us a few years ago, talked about it being the most powerful piece of information design ever created. And again, it's not just that it's a symbol, it's that it conveys a message. And it does that without language. And so I'm in agreement. Like there's no other symbol that I can think of that is immediate and it conveys a message. And it moves. Like that's the other thing we should let your listeners know is like the clock just doesn't tick down to midnight.

It moves back and forth. And again, we believe that it's our duty to move it back. Do you, this is something I'm constantly concerned with in the nuclear. space communicating with the younger generations. I think getting Hank Green in there is great. But do you ever worry about the metaphor itself becoming stale? Is there going to come a time where, you know, these analog clocks, these kids on their damn TikTok, don't use analog clocks. It's all digital now. Do we need to change it into like Slack notifications or something else that stresses people out and is kind of ubiquitous? I don't know what that would be, but do you ever

foresee a world in which the clock has to change into something else? You know, it has evolved, you know, and it is sort of the last quarter of a clock, but there have been times where it's been a full clock, you know, you can see that in the change in design and Beirut and his company, a pentagram made it a quarter again. So I can see a future in which it changes. I don't know if it will be as effective. You know, I think it's a huge design challenge. And for the last three years running, you know, Jimmy Kimmel both supports and makes fun of us every year for that very reason. It's an analog clock. You know, does a younger generation know how to read an analog clock?

Does it have the same impact? So I think these are all important questions. And I do think the clock will evolve. I just don't know how it will evolve. Let me ask you another existential question here kind of to see us out. How doomed do you feel? So not to bring this back to Dave Givens again, but we talked about that. Like, you know, just when do we feel the most in danger?

And again, in the 1980s, when he and Alan Moore were working on Watchmen, there was a sense of doom and inevitability. You know, in 1962, you know, during the Cuban missile crisis, the clock did not change. because there was such a scramble. In fact, let me, if I can dig this up for you, I wanted a quote from an editorial that I found by a Manhattan Project Scientist that was published in 1962. And he wrote on October 24th,

I am writing, writing, I am writing on a plane en route to Los Angeles from, let me start over. So again, October 24th, 1962, I'm writing on a plane en route from Los Angeles to Washington. And for all I know, this editorial, honoring the 20th anniversary of the first controlled release of nuclear energy by man may never be published.

So he was thinking in 1962, he was writing something. He was not even sure was going to matter because he thought the world was going to blow up. So I am optimistic because even though, again, it's the doomsday clock. The bulletin of the atomic scientists writes, you know, we're not just the nonprofit behind the clock, but we write daily articles about climate change and disruptive technology and nuclear risk. And all of that is to create a better informed public to influence policymakers to make us all smarter so we can make better decisions and come together. So that very act would be impossible to do if the doomsday clock was not only a symbol of hope, but also a. of change. And so that's how I can show up to work every day is that I am doing my part with the support of an amazing staff and amazing leadership to save the world, to make the world a better

place. And that is tremendously gratifying. It's a challenge, but I'm optimistic. You know, Angry Planet 2 tries to save the world once a week or if you subscribe six times a month. Robert K. Elder, thank you so much for coming on to Angry Planet and walking us through the history of the doomsday clock. Where can people find your work? You can find us at the bulletin. org. And again, you can just, you know, Google Doomsday Clock and we're the first thing there. And again, it's more, it's not just information. We have things like the Doomsday Clock playlist. So you can find our Spotify playlist and listen to all of the songs that the Doomsday Clock has inspired. But Matthew Jason, thank you again for having me.

That's all for this week. Angry Planet listeners. As always, Angry Planet is me, Matthew Galt, Jason Fields, and Kevin O'Dell. It was created by myself and Jason Fields. If you like the show, we have a substack, angryplanetpod.com or angryplanet.substack.com. You get two bonus episodes every month and commercial-free versions of the mainline episodes. That is $9 a month at Angry Planetpod.com and AngryPlanet.substack.com. We will be back next week with another conversation about conflict on an angry planet. Stay safe until then.