Jack Heinemann: Canterbury University genetics professor on the Doomsday Clock moving closer to midnight

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have moved their Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds to midnight.

The clock symbolically illustrates how close humanity is to the end of the world.

Canterbury University professor Jack Heinemann says escalating global tensions have increased the threat of nuclear war - and lack of action on climate change has raised concerns too.

"What they've drawn particular attention to this year is the uncontrolled possibility of further disruptions to our biological ecosystems - not just through the spontaneous occurrence of a new kind of pathogen... but also because we are developing, very rapidly, our use of gene technology."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brian Bridge.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
The Doomsday clock has ever closer to midnight than ever before.
The atomic scientists that set the clock have set it
now at eighty nine seconds to midnight. Symbolic it shows
us how close that humanity has come to the end
of the world. Jack Heyneman is a professor of genetics
at the University of Canterbury. He's with me tonight, Hijack.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hello, it's good to be here.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Do I take this seriously?

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Well, I think you should. I mean, the atomic scientists
have been publishing on the Clock for since the late
nineteen forties, and while we're still here, they have given
us an indication of the kind of stresses on our
planet and on our society that are leading us ever
closer to our own destruction.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Don't they. I mean, because it's been around since the
ninety forties, don't they have to move it every year
just to justify being there.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, so that they can they can earn a living. Yeah. No,
it hasn't always moved closer to midnight. There have been
times when it's moved further away from midnight. There have
been good news stories like the fall of the Soviet
Union moved the clock backwards. It reduced tensions for nuclear warfare,
So it doesn't always go in one direction, which you

(01:21):
might expect if they were trying to raise subscription rates.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Why why is it Why is it bumped to eighty
nine then from ninety last year? I mean, what's what's
so precarious about the world right now that that you
know didn't I mean, we had the war with Ukraine,
we had Russia's aggression, we had the Gaza War going
on the Middle East. If anything, what's happened in the
Middle East in the last little while, particularly with the

(01:47):
with Iran's weakness, you could argue you might have put
that to bed a little bit more.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
It's it's a very difficult, difficult equation, and it's not
just one or two events that they factor in. It's
across the board. So yes, it's only one second change,
but in part it tells us that things haven't improved.
Nothing has gotten better in Ukraine and really nothing is
a lot better in Gaza. At the same time, in

(02:18):
both of those theaters of conflict, there have been discussions
about introducing weapons of mass discussion destruction, such as nuclear weapons.
That has increased tensions in many different parts of the world.
On top of that, we're still looking at really no
substantial progress on controlling carbon and climate change. So we

(02:43):
continue to put pressure on societies and infrastructure the environment
in ways that get us to a tipping point. But
I think what they've drawn particular attention to this year
is the uncontrolled possibility of further disruption to our biological ecosystems,

(03:05):
not just through the spontaneous occurrence of a new kind
of pathogen that's still a possibility, but also because we
are developing very rapidly our use of gene technologies and
creating ever more opportunity for both accidental and nefarious use

(03:26):
of life in either warfare or release into the environment
through I suppose good intentions that go bad.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
So we got like something in a lab some lab,
and I don't know, China or maybe America, whatever, something
leaks and we all get wiped out. They're taking that
into account here too.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
That's one scenario. The other scenario is that, just like
New Zealand is discussing right now, we deregulate the use
of gene technologies so that they can be used outside
of the lab by more people, fewer people trained, and
more organisms exposed to the gene technology leading to ever
more complicated mixtures of organisms that might already be released

(04:13):
rather than in a laboratory and then escape.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
It's a grab bag of of horrible things that could
happen to planet Earth. What happens when the clock hits midnight?

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Oh yeah, I suppose we won't be here if it
actually hits midnight. That's just something you won't know about
the You know, the clock can cause people to disengage
and and to be depressed about circumstances. But I would
hope people would look at it another way. It's also

(04:46):
telling us that we have a pathway back. We have
we have clear indicators of where we should put our
priorities to help heal the earth and make it make
the Earth again a much more welcoming place to sustain
human life.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Tick tick tick Jack tick tick yep, thanks so much
for being with me. That is Jack Heineman. He's a
professor of genetics at the University of Canterbury talking about
the doomsday clock.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
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