As of the last update in 2007,
http://www.thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/overviewOverview
The Doomsday Clock conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction--the figurative midnight--and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies and new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrevocable harm.
<snip>
Even a small nuclear war would have devastating global effects on the climate:
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Nuclear_winter<snip>
There are several wrong impressions that people have about nuclear winter. One is that there was a flaw in the theory and that the large climatic effects were disproven. Another is that the problem, even if it existed, has been solved by the end of the nuclear arms race. But these are both wrong. Furthermore, new nuclear states threaten global climate change even with arsenals that are much less than 1% of the current global arsenal.
What's New
Based on new work published in 2007 and 2008 by some of the pioneers of nuclear winter research who worked on the original studies, we now can say several things about this topic.
New Science:
* A minor nuclear war (such as between India and Pakistan or in the Middle East), with each country using 50 Hiroshima-sized atom bombs as airbursts on urban areas, could produce climate change unprecedented in recorded human history. This is only 0.03% of the explosive power of the current global arsenal.
* This same scenario would produce global ozone depletion, because the heating of the stratosphere would enhance the chemical reactions that destroy ozone.
* A nuclear war between the United States and Russia today could produce nuclear winter, with temperatures plunging below freezing in the summer in major agricultural regions, threatening the food supply for most of the planet.
* The climatic effects of the smoke from burning cities and industrial areas would last for several years, much longer than we previously thought. New climate model simulations, that have the capability of including the entire atmosphere and oceans, show that the smoke would be lofted by solar heating to the upper stratosphere, where it would remain for years.
New Policy Implications:
* The only way to eliminate the possibility of this climatic catastrophe is to eliminate the nuclear weapons. If they exist, they can be used.
* The spread of nuclear weapons to new emerging states threatens not only the people of those countries, but the entire planet.
* Rapid reduction of the American and Russian nuclear arsenals will set an example for the rest of the world that nuclear weapons cannot be used and are not needed.
<snip>
Martin Hellman estimates the failure rate of nuclear deterrence at 1% per year:
http://nuclearrisk.org/soaring_article.php<snip>
On an annual basis, that makes relying on nuclear weapons a 99% safe maneuver. As with 99.9% safe maneuvers in soaring, that is not as safe as it sounds and is no cause for complacency. If we continue to rely on a strategy with a one percent failure rate per year, that adds up to about 10% in a decade and almost certain destruction within my grandchildren's lifetimes. Because the estimate was only accurate to an order of magnitude, the actual risk could be as much as three times greater or smaller. But even ⅓% per year adds up to roughly a 25% fatality rate for a child born today, and 3% per year would, with high probability, consign that child to an early, nuclear death.
Given the catastrophic consequences of a failure of nuclear deterrence, the usual standards for industrial safety would require the time horizon for a failure to be well over a million years before the risk might be acceptable. Even a 100,000 year time horizon would entail as much risk as a skydiving jump every year, but with the whole world in the parachute harness. And a 100 year time horizon is equivalent to making three parachute jumps a day, every day, with the whole world at risk.
While my preliminary analysis and the above described intuitive approach provide significant evidence that business as usual entails far too much risk, in-depth risk analyses are needed to correct or confirm those indications. A statement endorsed by the following notable individuals:
* Prof. Kenneth Arrow, Stanford University, 1972 Nobel Laureate in Economics
* Mr. D. James Bidzos, Chairman of the Board and Interim CEO, VeriSign Inc.
* Dr. Richard Garwin, IBM Fellow Emeritus, former member President's Science Advisory Committee and Defense Science Board
* Adm. Bobby R. Inman, USN (Ret.), University of Texas at Austin, former Director National Security Agency and Deputy Director CIA
* Prof. William Kays, former Dean of Engineering, Stanford University
* Prof. Donald Kennedy, President Emeritus of Stanford University, former head of FDA
* Prof. Martin Perl, Stanford University, 1995 Nobel Laureate in Physics
therefore "urgently petitions the international scientific community to undertake in-depth risk analyses of nuclear deterrence and, if the results so indicate, to raise an alarm alerting society to the unacceptable risk it faces as well as initiating a second phase effort to identify potential solutions."
<snip> Al Gore places global warming "alongside" nuclear war as a threat to civilization;
from his Senate appearance a year ago on January 29, 2009:
http://www.prmia.org/Weblogs/General/Odette_Gregory/2009/02/risk_perception.php<snip>
"... alongside the potential for some nuclear exchange, which is a possibility that thankfully has been receding over the last couple of decades, this is the one challenge that could completely end human civilization; and it is rushing at us with such speed and force, it's completely unprecedented and as one strategic analyst in the Pentagon wrote in a landmark study of why Pearl Harbor wasn't presented he said 'we as human beings have a tendency to confuse the unprecedented with the improbable; if something's never happened before we tend to think, well, that's not going to happen', the problem is the exceptions can kill you and this is one of them and if the world is going to respond the United States has to lead the world. ..."
<snip>
Gore and the IPCC won the Nobel for their work on global warming;
Obama won the Nobel for his commitment to nuclear arms reduction:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/10/09/nobel-committee-member-nuclear-disarmament-efforts-won-obama-the-prize/Nobel Committee Member: Nuclear Disarmament Efforts Won Obama the Prize
Agot Valle, a Norwegian politician and member of the five-person Nobel committee that chose this year’s winner, said the choice of President Barack Obama was primarily related his stance on nuclear disarmament.
“There is a criticism about the war in Afghanistan, and I understand that,” said Valle in a telephone interview. “But this was primarily an award on his work on and commitment to nuclear disarmament – and his dialogue. Of course there will be criticism, because he hasn’t achieved his goals yet. It will take time, but this is a support.”
Valle said the committee last met on Oct. 5, and that the decision to choose Obama was unanimous, especially after Sept. 24, when Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to chair a U.N. Security Council summit-level meeting. At that meeting, the Security Council passed a resolution calling for a strengthened Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ahead of negotiations on the issue with Iran in Geneva.
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