Approaching Midnight: the Nuclear Threat, Then and Now
Last week, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its “Doomsday Clock” from “two minutes to 100 seconds to midnight.” Said the Bulletin: “The iconic Doomsday Clock symbolizing the gravest perils facing humankind is now closer to midnight than at any point since its creation in 1947…Humanity continues to face two simultaneous dangers — nuclear war and climate change…The international security situation is dire, not just because of these threats, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode.”
Will apocalyptic destruction again be barely avoided — or will it not? Investigative journalist and Beyond Nuclear board member, Karl Grossman, has just published a retrospective at CounterPunch, about a former U.S. Air Force missile base on Long Island — set up to use nuclear-tipped missiles to shoot out of the sky Soviet bombers feared to be flying over or near Long Island to bomb New York City and other targets — which may be designated a high-pollution New York State Superfund site.
