100 seconds 75 years and counting The Mission 01 From the Executive Chair At our core, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is a 02 From the President & CEO media organization, publishing a free-access website and a 03 Our values bimonthly magazine. But we are much more. The Bulletin’s 04 From the Editor-in-Chief website, iconic Doomsday Clock, and regular events equip 05 @thebulletin.org the public, policymakers, and scientists with the information 08 The Magazine: 75 years needed to reduce manmade threats to our existence. and counting The Bulletin focuses on three main areas: nuclear risk, climate 09 Leonard Rieser Award change, and disruptive technologies. What connects 12 The Next Generation these topics is a driving belief that because humans created 13 The 2021 Clock Announcement them, we can control them. 15 The 2021 Clock Statement The Bulletin is an independent, 21 Growing the Bulletin community nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. We gather the 22 75th Anniversary Annual most informed and influential voices tracking man-made Meeting and Dinner threats and bring their innovative thinking to a 24 With gratitude global audience. We apply intellectual rigor to the 25 Financials conversation and do not shrink from alarming truths. 28 In memoriam 29 Thank you to our donors and partners 33 Leadership From the Executive Chair Edmund G. Brown Jr. Time to make the world safer Ominously, the Bulletin this year has again set the Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight. This should not be comforting. Here we are, more than 75 years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and we still have not freed ourselves from the danger of nuclear holocaust. In fact, Russia and the US, together with other nuclear powers, are blatantly ignoring Article VI of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which calls for an end to the nuclear arms buildup and negotiations for full nuclear disarmament. Worse, the three biggest nuclear powers are locked into escalating conflict over territory, policies, or what is now being called “core values.” Whether the solemn pledge of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” still holds is open to some doubt because our current leaders so far have failed to publicly endorse it. Extending New Start and discussing ways to reinvigorate the Iran nuclear deal are positive steps. However, they are clearly counterbalanced by a lack of serious dialogue about the overall nuclear danger, punctuated by increasingly shrill rhetoric. Compounding the risk is the growing power of cyber technology and artificial intelligence joined to the ever expanding use of space for military purposes. We know from past history that mistake, or miscalculation, can take us to the brink. All the more reason why dialogue—frequent and extensive—should be the order of the day. Tragically, it is not. The Bulletin continues its vital work of disseminating sound and scientific information and analysis about the nuclear threat as well as the other growing existential dangers, including the climate crisis. This work has never been more important. During this period of worldwide pandemic, it is clearer than ever that world leaders must get serious about existential issues—and come together to confront them. Sadly, national competition is holding back what needs to be an all-hands-on-deck approach We know from past history that by the major countries. mistake, or miscalculation, can We can learn from the scientists whose collaboration has resulted take us to the brink. All the more in vaccines produced at unprecedented speed. This is a sign of reason why dialogue—frequent what can be done—and must be done—if the world is to reduce the global threats that we all face. and extensive — should be the order of the day. Tragically, it is not. So as we reflect on the challenges and the work of the past year, let us renew our resolve and commitment to wake people up and to find more enlightened paths forward. The hour is late. Yes, it’s 100 seconds to midnight. But there is still time to make the world safer. Edmund G. Brown Jr. Executive Chair Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 1 From the President & CEO Rachel Bronson In short, the world needs small but mighty organizations, like the Bulletin, that relentlessly support the advancement of science and demand that science be used to further the cause of humanity and not to undermine it. Time to get real leader should have the sole authority to Achieving positive change will not be launch a nuclear war made the Bulletin more easy. The United States and China are In January 2020 I stood before a bank of determined to fulfill our four core values: to increasingly engaged in what some are global news organizations at the Bulletin’s be understandable and influential, vigilant, calling a technological Cold War. The annual Clock announcement, and moved solution-oriented, and fair-minded. US-Russian relationship is at its lowest the hands of the Doomsday Clock to 100 point, a dangerous reality highlighted in seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever As the coronavirus spread globally and the a mid-January Bulletin article by our been to midnight. Although our message denials of its severity multiplied, the Bulletin Executive Chair, Jerry Brown. Every nuclear was discussed in thousands of newspaper delivered high-quality pieces by authoritative state seems determined to bolster its arsenal articles and television shows, and watched public health experts and virologists. Our and make nuclear weapons more, rather by millions around the world, there were, articles and newly launched monthly program than less, usable. The pandemic remains as always, skeptics. Was it really that series generated an audience of a million a menacing global danger, and future ones dangerous? Did we really need to focus in March and nearly that in April and May. seem likely, notwithstanding the global attention on solving global problems? We hosted small expert groups on climate unprecedented speed at which vaccines Why so urgent? In light of what 2020 change to determine whether California are being developed. The Bulletin is wrought, those criticisms now seem wildfires were better attributed to poor committed to helping navigate these seriously misplaced. forest management or climate change— tough challenges and offering policy and confirmed the latter. solutions for moving forward. While concerns about climate change and nuclear war were the major drivers Over the summer, we published important In short, the world needs small but mighty in moving the hands of the Doomsday pieces in response to the George Floyd organizations, like the Bulletin, that Clock, the Bulletin’s 2020 statement had murder and protests, grappling publicly with relentlessly support the advancement of returned repeatedly to the same underlying how best to respond to the profound social science and demand that science be used problem: the deliberate erosion by politicians and racial injustices that exist not only in the to further the cause of humanity and not to of science and core institutions US more generally, but within the nuclear, undermine it. of global cooperation and verification. climate, and technology spaces specifically. We pledged to build campaigns in our own Your steadfast and generous support That statement anticipated the early denial in communities to dismantle structural racism. ensures that our staff, writers, and expert the US of the coronavirus pandemic threat, contributors have the resources to provide the downplaying and delaying of needed More recently, we have been publishing vital coverage on today’s most important public health responses, and the vilifying important work on the SolarWinds hack, issues. And for that, we couldn’t be of prominent scientists. It has been a and tied the January 6th assault on Capitol more thankful. disastrous succession of falling dominoes Hill to science denialism and conspiracy made possible by years of shredding science, theories that we’ve been covering intensely mocking experts, and catering to conspiracy for some time. theories instead of nurturing our previously Rachel Bronson most trusted institutions. Our 2021 Doomsday Clock statement, found in the pages that follow, details many COVID-19, the Australian and California of the challenges that we face, but also wildfires, and the recognition that no one identifies real opportunities for progress. 2 Our values To be understandable and influential. To be vigilant. To be solution-oriented. To be fair-minded. 3 From the Editor-in-Chief John Mecklin Looming threats and pandemic reality Through these (and many, many other) articles on the pandemic and its overlap Traffic to the Bulletin’s website increased with other existential risks, the Bulletin was by 95 percent in 2020, with 2.1 million able to carve out its own authoritative more unique visitors than in the same time space amid voluminous news coverage of period of 2019. This enormous growth the pandemic by media organizations with was driven by many factors, but most many times our resources. A collection of prominently by a continuous stream of our coronavirus pandemic articles is timely, high-quality content. available on the website. I am proud of it. Through much of 2020, Bulletin editorial As our pandemic coverage continued, efforts appropriately focused on the in April we also debuted our interactive coronavirus pandemic and how it intersects version of the “Turn Back the Clock” exhibit with the nuclear, climate, and other global initially displayed at the Museum of Science threats that the Bulletin covers. Because and Industry in Chicago. Spearheaded of its decades-long history of publishing by multimedia editor Thomas Gaulkin The latter portion of the 75th anniversary top experts in the biosecurity field—experts and chief digital officer Rob Elder, this issue consists of republications of who have long warned of the dangers interactive installation allows anyone noteworthy pieces that appeared in the of zoonotic disease outbreaks—the Bulletin with an internet connection and a web Bulletin over the last seven-and-a-half has been looked to globally as a leading browser to “walk through” and examine decades.