A Safer Future Is Still Possible: Technology, Risk, and Global Cooperation

How close are we to global disaster?

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ 2026 Doomsday Clock - currently at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest ever - serves as a metaphor for thinking about today’s biggest dangers and what we can do about them. The clock represents not a literal prediction, but a clear public warning that combines many kinds of evidence about how close we may be to major global disaster.

This talk will look at four major areas of risk - nuclear conflict, climate change, biological threats, and fast-moving new technologies like AI - and, most importantly, how these problems can reinforce each other.

We’ll focus on how practical choices: how leadership, cooperation, strong public institutions, and specific steps - like rebuilding arms talks, improving climate policy, strengthening public health, and setting limits on risky uses of AI - could reduce these dangers and “move the clock back.”

Speaker: Bebo White, science communicator