It is 100 seconds to midnight!

January 23, 2022 / activist360 / Leave a comment

Lack of actionable climate policies, continuing and dangerous threats posed by nuclear weapons, disruptive technologies, insufficient global COVID-19 response, and disinformation lead to a “mixed threat environment.”

On Thursday, January 20, 2022, the 75th anniversary of its Doomsday Clock (“Clock”), the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (“Bulletin”) announced that the Clock is set at 100 seconds to midnight, closer to midnight than ever in its history. This marks our second consecutive year with the Clock at 100 seconds to midnight.

The Doomsday Clock is a metaphor for how dangerous this moment is in human history. Since 1947, the Clock has symbolized how close humanity is to destroying itself with nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies. The Clock’s time is set by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board with the support of the Bulletin’s Board of Sponsors, which includes 11 Nobel Laureates. Designed by painter Martyl Langsdorf, the Clock has become an international symbol of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe. The Clock symbolizes danger, caution, hope, and our responsibility to one another.

[T]he Clock is not set by signs of good intentions but by evidence of action or, in this case, inaction. Signs of new arms races are clear.
—Scott D. Sagan, Ph.D., Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, the Mimi and Peter Haas University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and the Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI) at Stanford University, and member, Science and Security Board (SASB), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Stuck in a perilous moment

The Doomsday Clock statement explains that the Clock remains the closest it has ever been to the civilization-ending apocalypse because the world remains stuck in an extremely dangerous moment.”

One hundred seconds to midnight reflects the Board’s judgment that we are stuck in a perilous moment—one that brings neither stability nor security. Positive developments in 2021 failed to counteract negative, long-term trends.
—Sharon Squassoni, co-chair of the Science and Security Board (SASB), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and a research professor at the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy at George Washington University

We have an obligation and opportunity to fix these problems

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Eugene Rabinowitch, and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project. The scientists felt that they “could not remain aloof to the consequences of their work” and worked to inform the public and policymakers about manufactured threats to human existence. The Bulletin was founded on the belief that because humans created these problems, we have the obligation and opportunity to fix them.

The Doomsday Clock continues to hover dangerously, reminding us about how much work is needed to be done to ensure a safer and healthier planet. We must continue to push the hands of the Clock away from midnight.
—Rachel Bronson, PhD, president and CEO, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Key recommendations to reverse the hands of the Clock

The 2022 Doomsday Clock statement lists steps to address the current threats. Below are key recommendations to reverse the hands of the Clock:

Climate change

The United States and other countries should accelerate their decarbonization, matching policies to commitments. China should set an example by pursuing sustainable development pathways – not fossil fuel-intensive projects – in the One Belt One Road initiative.
Private and public investors need to redirect funds away from fossil fuel projects to climate-friendly investments.
The world’s wealthier countries need to provide more financial support and technology cooperation to developing countries to undertake strong climate action. COVID-recovery investments must favor climate mitigation and adaptation objectives across all economic sectors and address the full range of potential greenhouse gas emission reductions, including capital investments in urban development, agriculture, transport, heavy industry, buildings and appliances, and electric power.
At every reasonable opportunity, citizens of all countries must hold their local, regional, and national political officials and business and religious leaders accountable by asking “What are you doing to address climate change?”

Biological risks

US and other leaders should work through the WHO and other international institutions to reduce biological risks of all kinds through better monitoring of animal-human interactions, improvements in international disease surveillance and reporting, increased production and distribution of medical supplies, and expanded hospital capacity.
National leaders and international organizations must devise more effective regimes for monitoring biological research and development efforts.

Nuclear weapons

The Russian and US presidents should identify more ambitious and comprehensive limits on nuclear weapons and delivery systems by the end of 2022. They should both agree to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons by limiting their roles, missions, and platforms, and decrease budgets accordingly.
The United States should persuade allies and rivals that no-first-use of nuclear weapons is a step toward security and stability and then declare such a policy in concert with Russia (and China).
President Biden should eliminate the US presidents’ sole authority to launch nuclear weapons and work to persuade other countries with nuclear weapons to put in place similar barriers.
North Korea should codify its moratorium on nuclear tests and long-range missile tests and help other countries verify a moratorium on enriched uranium and plutonium production.

Disinformation

Governments, technology firms, academic experts, and media organizations need to cooperate to identify and implement practical and ethical ways to combat internet-enabled misinformation and disinformation.

Other global threats

Russia should rejoin the NATO-Russia Council and collaborate on risk-reduction and escalation-avoidance measures.
Iran and the United States must jointly return to full compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and initiate new, broader talks on Middle East security, and missile constraints.

No one changes the world alone. We’re not all going to agree, but we have to work together. And together, we will get it done.
—Hank Green, New York Times best-selling author and science communicator

#TurnBackTheClock

The Bulletin is asking people to take the #TurnBackTheClock Challenge. The challenge encourages people to share their ideas to Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or TikTok using the hashtag #TurnBackTheClock. Share stories and ideas about:

Positive actions that inspire
People or groups who are making a difference
Ways to help make the world safer

The format for submissions can include art, writing, videos, or song.

“We can no longer afford to focus all of our efforts on other perils to the exclusion of the biological threat. If we do, diseases and the lives they take will push the second hand on the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight.”
—Asha M. George, DrPH, executive director, Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense, and member, Science and Security Board (SASB), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Since its inception, the Bulletin’s Doomsday Clock has been set closer and farther away from midnight. In 2020, Bulletin set the Clock the closest it has ever been to midnight 100 seconds. The Clock has been set as far away as 17 minutes to midnight at the end of the Cold War.

In conjunction with the Doomsday Clock’s 75th anniversary, the Bulletin published a new book, The Doomsday Clock at 75, about the history of the Clock and its massive influence on science, politics, pop culture, entertainment, comics, and art.

Climate change brings serious health risks

December 26, 2021 / activist360 / Leave a comment

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that global warming and rainfall changes cause the loss of at least 150,000 lives every year.

By César Chelala, Common Dreams, (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

To avoid many of the health impacts of climate change it is important to strengthen public-health programs.”

Much attention has been devoted in recent times to the environmental and economic effects of climate change. Much less attention, however, has been given to the possible effects of climate change, particularly global warming, on the health of the populations, particularly those from the poorest countries. This is a trend that requires prompt attention if the negative effects of climate change on health are to be avoided or minimized. According to some estimates, at least 1 in 6 people worldwide will suffer the consequences of climate change.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that global warming and rainfall changes cause the loss of at least 150,000 lives every year. This figure could increase significantly if current trends of climate change continue. The WHO also states that the risk of death and disease from climate change will at least double in the next 20 years. Paradoxically, the countries that have least contributed to global warming are the most vulnerable to its negative consequences.

Global warming can affect the health of populations both directly and indirectly. Direct effects can result from heat-related deaths or weather-caused disasters such as hurricanes and drought-related wildfires. Indirect effects can result from alterations in complex ecological processes such as changes in the patterns of infectious diseases, in the quantity and quality of domestic food production, and altered potable water supplies. Experts predict that receding waters in the Ganges River could affect the lives of 400 million people.

Climate change could also alter the geographic distribution of disease vectors and thus alter the epidemiology of vector-transmitted diseases. Some diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, dengue and encephalitis, which are spread by insects, are sensitive to climate, since mosquitoes thrive in warmer climates. Other diseases, like cholera, are closely linked to the quality of potable water supplies, which can be seriously eroded by increasing rains, resulting in flooding and contamination by microorganisms.

Climate change will seriously affect food production, since many cereal crops can be affected by higher temperatures. This will have an effect not only on the amounts of food available but also on the economies of the countries affected.

Crop failures will provoke a higher death toll in poor countries, particularly among children, as a result of malnutrition. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that almost 800 million people in developing countries do not currently have enough to eat, a figure that is bound to increase substantially as a result of climate change.

In addition, prolonged heatwaves will likely increase deaths from heart disease, since the cardiovascular system must work harder to keep the body cool. Because the elderly and the sick are more susceptible to the effects of extreme changes in temperature, heatwaves will also pose health risks to those populations. Warmer weather may also provoke increases in ground-level ozone, which will increase the frequency of respiratory diseases by damaging lung tissue and sensitizing the respiratory tract to other irritants.

Increased global warming could exacerbate the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, increase the number of environmental refugees fleeing from weather-related disasters, and augment the risk of disease migration and epidemics. While the range of health consequences is wide and their magnitude difficult to predict, children are among the most vulnerable to these changes. Since children constitute almost half of the population in many developing countries, such problems assume even greater significance.

Although human populations vary widely in their vulnerability to climatic change, one may reasonably predict that those particularly affected will be the poor and marginal populations that have less easy access to adequate health services to respond to emergencies. In this regard, climate change will exacerbate the disparities between the rich and the poor throughout the world. Not only will the poor in developing countries be affected, however, but even the poor in industrialized societies.

To respond to the challenges of climate change, however, requires more than resources and technology. What is necessary is increased education, advocacy and the creation of legal frameworks to allow the people and governments better-informed and sustainable policy decisions. It is also important to develop risk-communication strategies.

To avoid many of the health impacts of climate change it is important to strengthen public-health programs so that they can monitor and treat the spread of infectious diseases, and respond more effectively to health emergencies as they appear. Climate change is a most serious health risk. We will ignore its consequences on the health of the populations at our own risk.

Why aren’t countries reporting environmental defender killings?

December 19, 2021 / activist360 / Leave a comment

By Carole Excell and Eva Hershaw, World Resources Institute (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

It’s been nearly 10 years since Chut Wutty, an environmental investigator and activist from Cambodia, was murdered while trying to halt an illegal logging operation.

His death prompted widespread indignation and inspired the civil society organization Global Witness to begin documenting the killing of land and environmental defenders worldwide. This led to the publication of “Deadly Environment,” in 2014, a landmark report that would become an annual account of killings against such activists worldwide. In its first report, Global Witness noted that killings were “notoriously under-reported” by governments.

A year later, in 2015, the question was taken up by the United Nations, which adopted Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 to achieve peace, justice and transparent institutions. The framework included a specific benchmark — indicator 16.10.1 — calling on countries to monitor killings of all human rights defenders and protect them.

But in the six years since the SDGs were approved, violence perpetrated against human rights defenders, specifically land and environmental defenders, has continued unabated. In fact, despite growing international attention, the overwhelming majority of governments have failed to take meaningful steps to better protect them.

Governments aren’t tracking and reporting violence against environmental defenders

For years, land and environmental defenders have served as our first line of defense against the destruction of vital natural resources, livelihoods and territories that have mitigated an impending climate disaster. They have exercised their fundamental rights to challenge companies, governments and private actors who have driven destruction of the water, land, biodiversity and climate on which we all depend.

Their crucial contribution has made environmental activists an unequalled target for violence, yet states have failed to monitor their situation in a meaningful and systematic way.

The recent Crucial Gap report, released by the Alliance for Land Indigenous and Environmental Defenders (ALLIED coalition), of which WRI is a member, details the concerning extent to which official data on land and environmental defenders is missing.

Since 2015, only 14 countries* have reported any cases of violence against human rights defenders to the U.N., whether through Voluntary National Reviews — progress reports, presented by states at the High Level Political Forum — or other mechanisms. Of the 162 countries that submitted Voluntary National Reviews since 2015, just three countries — Central African Republic, Nigeria, and Palestine, fewer than 2% — indicated that at least one human rights defender had been killed or attacked. Seven countries reported no cases of violence, while 94% of countries did not report at all.

The low numbers presented by governments at the High Level Political Forum comes in stark contrast to the widespread violence against these defenders, well documented by civil society groups and non-profits. In its recently published report, Last Line of Defence, Global Witness reported 227 land and environmental defenders murdered in 2020 alone, the highest number of lethal attacks ever recorded. Front Line Defenders, reporting cases from the Human Rights Defenders Memorial, noted that 331 human rights defenders, including land and environmental defenders, were killed during the same period.

The U.N. has also recognized the extent of violence beyond that reported by governments. In his 2020 SDG Progress Report, the Secretary-General stated that the U.N. had verified at least 1,940 killings of defenders from 81 between 2015 and 2019 — cases that largely came from civil society reporting. The dataset published by the U.N. remains limited to killings (and enforced disappearances) of human rights defenders by region and sex. The agency does not release country-level data, nor specific figures for land and environmental defenders, ethnicity or affiliation with indigenous groups.

For years, civil society has been working to cover this crucial reporting gap, but they cannot stand in for the state. Ultimately, it is the government that bears the responsibility for guaranteeing fundamental rights to all citizens, protecting them from harm, and upholding binding commitments made in regional and global human rights mechanisms.

How to better document violence against environmental defenders

There are, however, some glimmers of hope.

A small number of national human rights institutes and government agencies — in cooperation with national statistical offices, and the U.N.’s Human Rights Office (OHCHR) — are working to bolster national-level data collection, further encouraged by the Global Action Plan set forth by the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutes. The U.N. is supporting this work in many countries, but progress remains limited.

In the meantime, civil society continues to organize their data collection and explore ways to further support the construction of better national datasets. The ALLIED Data Working Group represents a number of these organizations, such as CEMDA in Mexico, ANGOC’ in Indonesia, UDEFEGUA in Guatemala and CINEP in Colombia, though many others could be mentioned.

Such monitoring initiatives have been central to efforts to protect activists in many countries, but this is ultimately an obligation that must be assumed by the state to fulfil their SDG requirements. Unless they commit to monitoring violence against human rights defenders, states will continue to fail to understand the root causes of such violence and will not be able to build the evidence-based policies needed to prevent further violence.

Among its findings, the Crucial Gap report recommends five specific actions, relevant to state and intergovernmental bodies, and to data collectors broadly:

States must develop and sustain mechanisms that collect and report data on attacks on environmental and human rights defenders.
States should develop and support national human rights institutes to be independent, authoritative monitoring bodies of attacks.
States and reporting agencies must recognize and protect the important role played by civil society data collectors, providing for their meaningful participation in monitoring processes and acknowledging their contributions, as well as the risk they incur for the work they do.
Reporting bodies — including National Human Rights Institutes, custodian agencies, treaty bodies, and other data collectors — must make the work of particularly vulnerable groups, including land, environmental and indigenous human rights defenders, more visible.
The international community must work towards a global, harmonized database of attacks and killings to capture the verified cases violence against land and environmental activists (and human rights defenders, more broadly), building on the work of ALLIED and others.

In order to better protect land and environmental defenders and to build policies that foster an enabling environment, the state — not civil society alone — must be monitoring, reporting on and ultimately responding to their situation. In many cases, we see government discrediting civil society monitoring work while they fail to protect defenders themselves.

Until national governments commit resources to build monitoring capacity and develop mechanisms to document violence against defenders, the message sent to civil society and the global community will be the same: that stopping violence against activists is not a priority and, as a result, it’s not monitored.

Without a state-led commitment to stop this violence, such attacks will continue.

In the nearly 10 years since Chut Wutty died, thousands of defenders across the world have lost their lives in defense of the land, environment and indigenous territories. It is time for governments to step up, assume their responsibilities, and in the next 10 years, do a better job of defending their defenders.

Endnote:

*Four additional countries – Colombia, Kenya, Mexico and the Philippines – reported data directly to OHCHR, the custodian of indicator 16.10.1.