The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock — set by top scientists, including multiple Nobel laureates — has just inched forward to 89 seconds before midnight, a “stark signal” that humanity is the closest it’s been to self-destruction in almost 80 years. Since 1947, scientists have used the clock to bring the most consequential threats facing humanity to the forefront of global conversations.
The Jan. 28 announcement comes at a time humanity is facing a new nuclear arms race and battling an unpredictable climate change. The clock was set at nine minutes before midnight when it was originally established by a group of scientists, including Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer.
The announcement is a wakeup call at a precarious time when the nuclear threat is the highest it’s been since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Threats of using nuclear weapons in the ongoing war in Ukraine, nuclear superpowers building up their nuclear arsenals and preparing for the possibility of resumed nuclear testing move us closer toward the unthinkable.
The Biden administration expanded the Nevada test site, cutting roads and digging new tunnels to prepare for testing. Russia and China are making similar preparations. Robert O’ Brien, former National Security advisor during Trump’s first term, advocated the resumption of nuclear testing and renewed production of plutonium and weapons-grade uranium. More recently, Trump ally Robert Peters, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the think tank behind Project 2505, has argued not only that the U.S. must be ready to test nuclear weapons underground at the Nevada National Security Site as a signal to adversaries, but that a crisis situation would “allow the U.S. to conduct open-air testing within the U.S.”
That news sent those who have lived with the consequences of nuclear testing reeling. Such a “signal to adversaries” would endanger all people downwind. Have we learned nothing from our shameful past?
With global tensions on the brink in the nuclear arena, the voices of those of us who have already suffered the devastating and ongoing effects of nuclear weapons must be integral to any discussion of this planet’s nuclear future. Our insights and perspective are as important as the voices of think tanks experts and policy makers. Our lived experience should serve as a warning against ever testing or using these deadly weapons again.
As casualties of the Cold War, we know first-hand the tragic consequences of radiation-related cancer and illnesses and of lands and water contaminated from radioactive fallout of 928 nuclear tests in Nevada. We know how four decades of nuclear testing from more than 2,000 nuclear tests worldwide spread fallout around the globe, tragically impacting millions of people.
Recognizing the disastrous human and environmental consequences of Cold War era nuclear testing, 187 countries — including the U.S., Russia, and China — signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996. No signatory of the treaty has tested nuclear weapons since then. Do we really want to tear up this consensus and repeat the sins of the past?
In addition to what should be the obvious health and environmental reasons not to resume nuclear weapons production and testing, going down that path would also be enormously dangerous and destabilizing geopolitically and would push the Doomsday Clock even closer to midnight. GOP nuclear hawks like Peters argue that resuming nuclear testing would “signal our resolve” to use nuclear weapons to Russia and China and help put the National Nuclear Security Administration on a “wartime footing.” But instead of “deterring” adversaries, such a policy will almost certainly ratchet up nuclear tensions, trigger a chain reaction of other nuclear weapons states also testing their nukes and intensify the new nuclear arms race, making nuclear war more, not less, likely. In this light, resuming nuclear testing openly contradicts President Trump’s repeatedly stated desire to reduce nuclear risks and cut nuclear weapons together with Russia and China.
It is unconscionable that political leaders are toying with restarting the entire nuclear cycle from production to testing — which surely will create more casualties — when those of us already harmed are still fighting for recognition, reparation and justice.
It is time for global leaders to step back and realize the existential threat of nuclear weapons. Building up our nuclear arsenal keeps us farther from peace and does not make us more secure. It’s time for average citizens to learn about the issue, educate people around them, pressure elected officials to demand no testing and finally pass the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
UN. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ warning after last year’s announcement is more pressing than ever: “In truth, the Doomsday Clock is a global alarm clock. We need to wake up — and get to work.”
(Mary Dickson) Mary Dickson is a Salt Lake City writer, a downwinder and an internationally recognized advocate for victims of nuclear weapons.
Mary Dickson is a Salt Lake City writer, a downwinder and an internationally recognized advocate for victims of nuclear weapons who speaks and writes widely about the effects of their effects. The Alliance of Nuclear Accountability recognized for her “lifelong dedication to achieving justice for downwinders and preventing similar harms to future generations.”
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