Martin Rees considers the changing of the clock

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists was founded at the end of World War II by a group of physicists, based in Chicago, many of whom had worked at Los Alamos on the Manhattan project. The logo on each issue's cover is a clock, the closeness of whose hands to midnight indicates how precarious the world situation is – or is thought to be by the Bulletin's editorial board.

The threat of all-out nuclear war – a threat far worse than any that had previously imperilled our species – hung over us for forty years. At any time during the Cold War, the superpowers could have stumbled towards Armageddon through muddle and miscalculation. When the cold war ended, the risk plainly eased; the Bulletin's clock was put back to 17 minutes to midnight. There was thereafter far less chance of tens of thousands of bombs devastating our civilisation. Since then, the hands have crept closer to midnight, as global security has again deteriorated.  The clock was last changed in 2002, when the hands were set at seven minutes to midnight.

The Bulletin is once again considering whether to change the place of the hands. Should they approach even nearer to midnight, indicating that the danger of global disaster has grown, or should they stay the same? Or even go back?

Looking ahead

The catastrophic threat could be merely in temporary abeyance. In the last century the Soviet Union rose and fell: there were two world wars. In the next hundred years, geopolitical realignments could be just as drastic, leading to a nuclear standoff between new superpowers that might be handled less well (or less luckily) than the Cuban crisis was. And there is now more chance then ever of a few nuclear weapons going off in a localised conflict.

We are confronted by proliferation of nuclear weapons (in North Korea and Iran for instance). Terrorists might some day acquire a nuclear weapon. If they did, they would willingly detonate it in a city centre, killing tens of thousands along with themselves; and millions around the world would acclaim them as heroes.

The nuclear threat will always be with us. But it is based on basic science that dates from the 1930s. What are the potential impacts of 21st century science? There are grounds for being a techno-optimist. The technologies that fuel economic growth today – IT, miniaturisation and biotech – are environmentally and socially benign. They're sparing of energy, and of raw materials. They boost the quality of life in the developing as well as the developed world, and have much further to go. That's good news.

But we can plausibly predict some disquieting trends. These may not threaten a sudden world-wide catastrophe – the doomsday clock is not such a good metaphor – but the threats are, in aggregate, as worrying and challenging.

Current threats

Some threats are environmental: rising populations, especially in the megacities of the developing world, increasing energy consumption, and so forth. Collective human actions are transforming, even ravaging, the entire biosphere – perhaps irreversibly – through global warming and loss of biodiversity. We've entered a new geological era, the Anthropocene. We don't fully understand the consequences of our many-faceted assault on the interwoven fabric of atmosphere, water, land and life.

Humankind's collective impacts on the biosphere, climate and oceans are unprecedented. These environmentally-driven threats – `threats without enemies’ – should loom as large in the political perspective as did the East/West political divide during the Cold War era. Unless they rise higher on international agendas, remedial action may come too late to prevent runaway climatic or environmental devastation. The UK government, at the 2005 Gleneagles G8 Summit and in follow-up activities, has taken a welcome lead.

Humans are collectively endangering our planet, but there are novel and growing vulnerabilities from individuals too. Biotech is becoming ever more empowering; cybertech interconnects us ever more closely. Even a single technically-capable person will soon have the capability to cause massive disruption through error or terror. The relevant techniques and expertise will be accessible to millions – they do not require large special purpose facilities, as nuclear weapons do. It would be hard to eliminate the risk, even with very intrusive surveillance.

At the moment, science is applied suboptimally. The benefits of new technology accrue mainly to the developed world; huge resources are devoted to developing new weaponry. In medicine, the focus is disproportionately on cancer and cardiovascular studies, the ailments that loom largest in prosperous countries, rather than on the infections endemic to the tropics.

Opinion polls show that people are positive about science – indeed they trust scientists (especially those in academia) more than they trust most other trades and professions. But they're worried that science's applications could be running out of control. There'll be more and more 'doors that we could open but which are best left closed' - for ethical or prudential reasons.

Scientists and policy 

The Royal Society has an active policy unit, and an extensive 'Science and Society' programme. We can draw on very wide expertise to clarify key issues – and perhaps identify them before others can. We disseminate our reports to policy makers, the media and the wider public. We hope in coming years to broaden and strengthen these efforts.

The Society's formal reports, and its responses to government consultation, focus on scientific and technical issues where we claim expertise and can present a consensus view. But no important policy choice is solely scientific: strategic, economic, social, and ethical ramifications enter as well. On these broader questions, scientists have no special credentials and won't necessarily have a consensus view.

However, it would surely be welcome if many more individual scientists – with views spanning the entire political spectrum – engaged more willingly with the media and in political fora, especially in debating the crucial long-term issues that tend to be sidelined by seemingly urgent but less important ones.

There will be ever more political choices with a scientific dimension – energy, environment, and medicine and bioethics. How science is applied and prioritised shouldn't be decided by scientists alone. These choices should be made after the widest possible discussion, but mindful of the best scientific evidence available.

Scientists’ responsibility

But scientists surely have a special responsibility. The physicists who founded the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists set us a fine example. They didn't say that they were 'just scientists' and that the use made of their work was up to politicians. They took the line that scientists should not be indifferent to the fruits of their ideas –
their intellectual creations. They should try to foster benign spin-offs of their research, but constrain, so far as they can, the threatening 'dark side'. Academic scientists have a special obligation because they have more freedom than those in government, or those subject to commercial pressures.

How might the Bulletin set the clock?

21st century technology, if optimally applied, could offer immense opportunities, for the developing and the developed world. On these grounds, the hands might move away from midnight. But it will present new threats more diverse and more intractable than nuclear weapons did. Perhaps the hands should move towards midnight, after all.

Whatever the Bulletin decides, scientists need to channel their efforts wisely and engage with the political process nationally and internationally, if we are to confront these threats successfully. We shall need, in all fields of science, individuals with the wisdom and commitment of the atomic scientists who founded the Bulletin.

Lord Rees of Ludlow is President of the Royal Society