{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"80,000 Hours Podcast","title":"#125 – Joan Rohlfing on how to avoid catastrophic nuclear blunders","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":8022,"description":"Since the Soviet Union split into different countries in 1991, the pervasive fear of catastrophe that people lived with for decades has gradually faded from memory, and nuclear warhead stockpiles have declined by 83%. Nuclear brinksmanship, proxy wars, and the game theory of mutually assured destruction (MAD) have come to feel like relics of another era. \r\n\r\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine has changed all that. \r\n\r\nAccording to Joan Rohlfing — President of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit focused on reducing threats from nuclear and biological weapons — the annual risk of a ‘global catastrophic nuclear event'’ never fell as low as people like to think, and for some time has been on its way back up. \r\n\r\nLinks to learn more, summary and full transcript. \r\n\r\nAt the same time, civil society funding for research and advocacy around nuclear risks is being cut in half over a period of years — despite the fact that at $60 million a year, it was already just a thousandth as much as the US spends maintaining its nuclear deterrent. \r\n\r\nIf new funding sources are not identified to replace donors that are withdrawing, the existing pool of talent will have to leave for greener pastures, and most of the next generation will see a career in the field as unviable. \r\n\r\nWhile global poverty is on the decline and life expectancy increasing, the chance of a catastrophic nuclear event is probably trending in the wrong direction. \r\n\r\nUkraine gave up its nuclear weapons in 1994 in exchange for security guarantees that turned out not to be worth the paper they were written on. States that have nuclear weapons (such as North Korea), states that are pursuing them (such as Iran), and states that have pursued nuclear weapons but since abandoned them (such as Libya, Syria, and South Africa) may take this as a valuable lesson in the importance of military power over promises. \r\n\r\nChina has been expanding its arsenal and testing hypersonic glide missiles that can...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/VO1STE7hN95RRg9QdLo4soV2VhhbR9PF5ZZlRhDYcwE/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzQxNDAyLzE2ODM1/NDQ1NDAtYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}