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The risk of nuclear war is the highest its been since the height of the Cold Warthe
slightest risk of conflict risks extinctionyou must vote neg.
The New York Times, 01/26
Jonah Engel Bromwich, Doomsday Clock Moves Closer to Midnight, Signaling Concern Among Scientists, The New York Times,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/science/doomsday-clock-countdown-2017.html

It is getting closer to midnight. On Thursday, the group of scientists who orchestrate the Doomsday Clock, a
symbolic instrument informing the public when the earth is facing imminent disaster, moved
its minute hand from three to two and a half minutes before the final hour. It was the closest
the clock had been to midnight since 1953, the year after the United States and the Soviet
Union conducted competing tests of the hydrogen bomb. Though scientists decide on the clocks position, it is not
a scientific instrument, or even a physical one. The movement of its symbolic hands is decided upon by the Science and Security Board of the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The organization introduced the clock on the cover of its June 1947 edition, placing it at seven minutes to
midnight. Since then, it has moved closer to midnight and farther away, depending on the boards conclusions. Thursdays announcement was
made by Rachel Bronson, the executive director and publisher of the bulletin. She was assisted by the
theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, the climate scientist and meteorologist David Titley, and the former United States ambassador Thomas

explained why the board had included the 30-second

mark in the measurement. She said that it was an attention-catching signal that was meant to
acknowledge what a dangerous moment were in, and how important it is for people to
take note. Were so concerned about the rhetoric, and the lack of respect for expertise,
that we moved it 30 seconds, she said. Rather than create panic, were hoping that this
drives action. In an op-ed for The New York Times, Dr. Titley and Dr. Krauss elaborated on
their concerns, citing the increasing threats of nuclear weapons and climate change, as well as
President Trumps pledges to impede what they see as progress on both fronts, as reasons for
moving the clock closer to midnight. Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the
clock largely because of the statements of a single person, they wrote. But when that person
is the new president of the United States, his words matter. The board has held the responsibility for the
Pickering. Ms. Bronson, in a post-announcement interview,

clocks movements since 1973, when the bulletins editor, Eugene Rabinowitch, died. Composed of scientists, and nuclear and climate
experts, the board meets biannually to discuss where the clocks hands should fall in light of world events. In the 1950s, the scientists feared
nuclear annihilation, and since then, the board has begun to consider other existential threats, including climate change, compromised
biosecurity and artificial intelligence. There were crises that the clock was not quick enough to take into account. The Cuban Missile Crisis,
for instance, in 1962, did not change the hands of the clock, which at the time stood at seven minutes to midnight. An explanation on the
Bulletins website accounts for this seeming lapse in timekeeping: The Cuban Missile Crisis, for all its potential and ultimate destruction,
only lasted a few weeks, it says. However, the lessons were quickly apparent when the United States and the Soviet Union installed the first
hotline between the two capitals to improve communications, and, of course, negotiated the 1963 test ban treaty, ending all atmospheric
nuclear testing. The

end of the Cold War came as a relief to those who had lived in fear of nuclear
annihilation for decades, and the minute hand slowly moved away from danger. In 1990, it
was at 10 minutes to midnight. The next year, it was a full 17 minutes away, at the relatively
undisturbing time of 11:43. The illusion that tens of thousands of nuclear weapons are a guarantor of national security has been stripped

Conflict between India and

Pakistan, both of whom staged nuclear weapons tests three weeks apart, had the clock at nine
minutes to midnight in 1998. By 2007, fears about Iranian and North Korean nuclear capacity
had pushed it to 11:55. By 2015, the scientists were back in a state of unmitigated concern,
with the clock at three minutes to midnight, the closest it had been since 1984. Unchecked
climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons
arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of
humanity, the bulletin said. World leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale
required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership
endanger every person on Earth, it added.
away, the Bulletin said at the time. But over the next two decades the clock slowly ticked back.