It is now 30 seconds closer to midnight on the Doomsday Clock, the symbol maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic 杏吧原创s to show the state of threats to human civilisation.
Now set at two and a half minutes to midnight, the only time the setting has been more dire was in the 1950s when the clock stood at two minutes to midnight in the depths of the Cold War.
The clock was introduced in 1947 (set at 7 minutes to midnight) as a graphic indication of how close we were to nuclear Armageddon because of the advent of atomic weapons. In 2007, the calculus of doom was expanded to include the existential threat posed by human-induced climate disruption. While colleagues assessed new nuclear worries, it was on climate that I reviewed the events of 2016 to help set the clock as a member of the bulletin鈥檚 science and security board.
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In many ways last year was shaping up as a promising one for progress on the climate problem. Notably, the successful conclusion of the Paris agreement for the first time set emissions targets out to 2030 embracing virtually all the nations of the world. These may be enough (if honoured) to keep global emission rates roughly flat between now and then 鈥� a major step forward compared to exponential growth 鈥� but that will not be enough.
In view of the millennial-scale duration of the effects of carbon dioxide emissions on climate, in the years past 2030, emissions need to fall to essentially zero, and they must do so relatively quickly. It is not clear how that will happen. Still, it was progress.
But then came the nightmare November election of Donald Trump as US president, giving him control of the White house with no real prospect of checks and balances from either house of the US Congress House or the Supreme Court.
Once the initial shock wore off there was a lot of naive and wishful thinking about the chances that he would pivot from his stance as a candidate, and govern more pragmatically than he campaigned.
Disdain for science
Actions taken since the election have put paid to any such hopes, and shown an unprecedented disdain for credible science. Scott Pruitt, Trump鈥檚 nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, has not only denied the overwhelming scientific consensus on the human role in climate change and the magnitude of the problem, but has even made a career out of fighting regulation of emission of such obvious and immediately harmful poisons such as mercury.
Trump has declared the Obama Climate Action Plan to be harmful and unnecessary, and has expunged all mention of climate from the White House web site. Worse, in a foreshadowing of the gagging of federal scientists, the Environmental Protection Agency was ordered to take down its climate information web page, imperiling years of work in putting together material to educate the public in the sound science of the matter. That order was later retracted.
The president has immediately revived the Keystone XL pipeline, which in itself does not lead to release of a significant amount of carbon, but provides profits fueling further development of Alberta tar sands oil, which does represent a considerable threat to climate.
Trump鈥檚 posturing about exports and trade wars could make Chinese renewable energy technologies more expensive for Americans, and involve (dubiously legal) attempts to subsidise the export of coal 鈥� though there will be few takers for that if China stays its course in reducing coal consumption. There is much, much more of a similar nature, and we are barely into the first week since the inauguration.
How bad is it?
So why move the clock forward just a half minute, if the outlook is so bleak?
It鈥檚 because the other shoe has not yet dropped, though it is clearly untied and in plain view in Trump鈥檚 hand. We do not know how many of his policies will be enacted.
The US accounts for about 20 per cent of the world鈥檚 carbon dioxide emissions, but it is only 20 per cent, and presidential policy has leverage over only a small portion of that; the effect on emissions over eight (or let鈥檚 hope it鈥檚 only four) years will be significant, but not a game changer, unless Trump鈥檚 disdain for climate action infects the global process.
After all, US emissions rose more under the climate-friendly administration of president Bill Clinton than under the climate-hostile one of Bush junior. Economic forces are likely to stymie any Trump attempt to stem the decline of coal production.
Progress can still be made at the state level (if the administration respects state-level rights that Republicans claim to hold so dear), and there may be room for common ground on infrastructure projects that could include building a smart electricity grid, or developing new nuclear reactor designs.
The clean energy revolution can provide good manufacturing jobs for exactly those disaffected workers who put Trump into office. Democrats and progressive Republicans should seize such opportunities, but not be duped into thinking they can make a deal with a president who has so abundantly demonstrated dishonesty.
The entry of the term 鈥渁lternative facts鈥� into the lexicon (for outright lies) is one of the more disconcerting harbingers of what dealing with the new administration will be like. Despair is not an option.
Progressives of all parties should be prepared to resist Trump鈥檚 policies at every turn, but above all should not neglect the task of building a new generation of leadership who will be ready to challenge Trump when his support collapses, as it surely will once Americans wake up to the realities of what a Trump administration means.
Raymond Pierrehumbert is the Halley Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford.