As a result, I also work with the Bulletin’ s Science and Security Board, which, each year, decides on the position of the Doomsday Clock. I am privileged to chair the Bulletin’ s Board of Sponsors, a group of scientists, including sixteen Nobel laureates, that was created by Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer after the Second World War to advise the Bulletin. In total, in the past sixty-nine years, the clock has been changed twenty-two times, giving the world an easy way to gauge the likelihood that our species will destroy itself. At the end of the Cold War, in 1991, it was turned back to 11:43, or seventeen minutes to midnight (its furthest from doomsday). That year, it was set at 11:53, or “seven minutes to midnight.” In 1953, following American and Soviet tests of the hydrogen bomb, the clock reached 11:58, or two minutes to midnight (the closest to doomsday it’s ever been). In 1947, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published, on its cover, a “Doomsday Clock.” The clock was designed to represent the existential threat to humanity posed by nuclear weapons. Leaders need a crisis mindset.The Doomsday Clock in 2002, when it was set at 11:53. We are facing multiple, existential crises. This must change in 2023 if we are to avert catastrophe. The science is clear, but the political will is lacking. "But our leaders are not acting at sufficient speed or scale to secure a peaceful and liveable planet. "We are on the brink of a precipice," Robinson, who is also a member of global independent leaders group The Elders, said. Recent months have revealed record-high carbon dioxide emissions, worsening weather extremes and "cascading effects" of crop failures, diseases and weakening infrastructure, the Bulletin says.īiological threats such as COVID-19 and disinformation were also listed as factors for Doomsday clock change.įor Mary Robinson, a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that the latest move on the clock is "sounding an alarm for the whole of humanity." The threat of nuclear war is also a factor in the world's inching toward midnight, as is the climate crisis, which the need to address has only increased in urgency. "Ninety seconds to midnight is the closest the clock has ever been set to midnight, and it's a decision our experts do not take lightly." "We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality," Bulletin president and CEO Rachel Bronson said. Members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists revealed on Tuesday that world's metaphorical Doomsday clock has reached 90 seconds to midnight – the closest the world has ever been to "global catastrophe." The clock is not a forecasting tool, but rather a symbol created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1947 to shed light on how humanity's actions are causing problems that could have mass consequences. On Tuesday, the hands of the Doomsday clock reached their closest position to midnight yet. But now, as Ukraine approaches a year of war, the climate crisis continues and other actions threaten humanity, the world has officially crept even closer to what the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists calls "global catastrophe." For three years, the hands of the world's Doomsday clock were set at 100 seconds to midnight.
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