It’s still three minutes to midnight. For those of you unsure as to what that means, the phrase pertains to the Doomsday Clock, a symbolic representation of how close humanity is to global catastrophe. At midnight, we’re all screwed and I seriously wonder how much of the stroke of midnight might be the fault of the United States.
There are plenty of existential risks to the survival of humanity, though there tends to be some disagreement as to what they will be. Despite the disagreements, humanity on the whole can agree that at any given moment, the world is staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.
The question then becomes: is the gun being pointed at us or are we pointing it at ourselves?
A seemingly common belief is that if there were to be a catastrophic event that took place on Earth, the United States would be responsible for it, at least to a degree. I find there to be, at this time, a certain amount of legitimacy to that accusation.
If we consider the existential threat of global climate change, part of the reason nothing can legitimately be done about it right now is because members of Congress don’t believe it’s happening. Hell, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, thinks a February snowball in Washington, D.C. is proof of that on its own.
If we consider the possibility of a catastrophic event being linked to nuclear weapons and warfare, it’s likely to assume that rising tensions between several nations and an apparent disregard for the Non-Proliferation Treaty would be responsible for the devastation and where there’s nukes, the United States isn’t far away.
In fact, the United States is currently in the middle of spending $1 trillion to modernize, refurbish, and rebuild their nuclear arsenal.
So is Russia, the United States’ worthy Cold War opponent with whom the “frenemies” relationship is straining more than usual.
This refurbishment plan contributed to the Doomsday Clock being moved from five minutes to three minutes to midnight last year.
No one is saying it’s a guarantee that when humanity’s clock strikes midnight, the world will end. Further, no one is saying it’s a guarantee that the United States will somehow be complicit in the potential destruction of humanity. But we cannot lie to ourselves that many of the things we do, both domestically and internationally, aren’t dangerous and don’t carry the potential to destroy civilization as we know it. We cannot continue to be complacent as factions of our government, as well as factions of other governments (i.e. Israel), continue attempting to strong-arm the rest of the world into doing their bidding.
Nor should be rest on our laurels that God will save us when the Earth’s global temperature passes the benchmark of 2 degrees Celsius.
While some may consider critiques such as these the ramblings of a paranoid theorist, I urge everyone to look at human history (particularly United States history) since the late-19th Century and tell me there is not cause for concern. I don’t believe that our fear-mongering, warhawking, fossil fuel-dependent government are taking these existential threats seriously, and we all pay the price if their failure to act results in a doomsday scenario.
Is convenience and tribalism worth the risk of annihilation?
Featured image by Ben Salter, available under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.