At the end of January, the keepers of the Doomsday Clock announced that the world was 89 seconds to midnight, a metaphor for our proximity to extinction. That’s one second closer than we were for the past two years, and the nearest the clock has ever inched to global destruction by way of human-made risks, including nuclear weapons, climate change and new technologies like artificial intelligence.
The iconic clock is set by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an organization founded by American physicists at the dawn of the nuclear age, months after the United States detonated atomic bombs in Japan. On Monday, the Bulletin named Alexandra Bell, a nuclear affairs expert, as its new president and chief executive. She replaces Rachel Bronson, who served in the role for a decade.
Ms. Bell worked on arms control and nonproliferation issues in the U.S. State Department starting in the Obama administration, where she was involved in securing ratification of New START, the nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. She returned to the department as a deputy assistant secretary in 2021, promoting dialogue on nuclear issues with nations around the world. During the last two years of the Biden administration, she led the U.S. delegation of the P5 Process, currently the only forum where the United States, China and Russia discuss nuclear risk reduction.
In an interview last week, Ms. Bell discussed the ever-evolving threats of the day and the role she wants the Bulletin to play in preventing worldwide disaster. “It’s important to listen to the echoes of history,” she said, to be “informed by the past, but not shackled to it.”
The following conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
How does an 80-year-old organization like the Bulletin stay relevant in an ever-changing world?
When I entered the field, the Doomsday Clock was at five minutes to midnight. I remember being struck by the symbolism. The clock being at its closest point to midnight now is really a warning that we are running out of time. The fact that it ticked one second closer is an indication that every second counts.
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