Listen to the first episode of the NEVER podcast – Ok, Doomer! In this episode, we explore the basics of man-made existential risk, featuring an introduction to the topic, its relationship to great power competition, how governments have dealt with potential existential risks such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and how they should respond to them in future.
The ELN’s Director, Sir Adam Thomson, spoke at this year’s Effective Altruism conference on the nature of the catastrophic and existential risks we face, including nuclear risks. He discusses how they are meaningfully different from those of 60 years ago, and how we should reassess how we tackle the single greatest driver of them, great power competition.
Today the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have announced the Doomsday Clock 2023 and how close we are to midnight. We asked some of our network members what can be done to turn back the clock and avert a man-made global catastrophe.
Although it may now be hard to escape a cold war, especially between Russia and the West, countries can still make real choices that affect the course of the confrontation, writes ELN Director Sir Adam Thomson. Here he suggests four axes along which all states involved should be considering their positioning as they pursue their clashing desired outcomes.
With NATO leaders meeting in Madrid to agree on a new Strategic Concept, Adam Thomson and Graham Stacey argue that it must deliver modern deterrence fit for the next decade. They suggest four adjustments that would make NATO’s deterrence more effective at lower risk and lower cost.
As risk reduction and mutual security are suffering more damage than at any time since the Cold War, ELN Director Sir Adam Thomson looks at how our diverse network can make a real difference when differing security outlooks have become so polarised.