Doomsday Clock moves thirty seconds closer to 'midnight' due to rising nuclear tensions, climate change
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists officially moved its Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to 'midnight' on Thursday morning, citing both rising nuclear tensions and climate change as the main influences behind the update.
The clock is now set at just two minutes away from doom, the closest it has ever been since 1953 when the United States and the Soviet Union upgraded their nuclear arsenals with the hydrogen bomb.
If you're not familiar with the clock, here it is in a nutshell.
The foreboding device, created and maintained by the Bulletin, takes into account the many potential factors that may bring about the end of the world in order to accurately predict a potential apocalypse.
Perils that can contribute to the clock's time may include, but are not limited to, nuclear threats, climate change and biosecurity challenges.
According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, when the clock strikes 'midnight,' the world as we know it comes to an end — though by what means is yet to be determined.
The clock has wavered between two and 17 minutes until doom since its inception in 1947.
Thursday's change reflects the second time ever that the time has reached two minutes to midnight. The first time was during the Cold War era.
The scientists behind the device have credited the alarming update mainly to the rising threat of global nuclear war and our failure to properly address the issue of climate change.
"To call the world nuclear situation dire is to understate the danger — and its immediacy," wrote chairs of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Board Lawrence Krauss and Robert Rosner in an op-ed for the Washington Post. "North Korea’s nuclear weapons program appeared to make remarkable progress in 2017, increasing risks for itself, other countries in the region and the United States."
Krauss, a theoretical physicist, and Rosner, an astrophysicist, went on to cite provocative rhetoric between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a large influence on their decision to move us closer to the apocalypse.
"The failure in 2017 to secure a temporary freeze on North Korea’s nuclear development was unsurprising to observers of the downward spiral of nuclear rhetoric between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un," they wrote. "But North Korea’s developing nuclear program will reverberate not just in the Asia-Pacific, as neighboring countries review their security options, but more widely, as all countries consider the costs and benefits of the international framework of nonproliferation treaties and agreements."
Krauss and Rosner also discussed climate change as a major influence on the decision, saying that although the danger of global warming may seem less immediate than the risk of nuclear annihilation, urgent attention is still needed to avoid catastrophic temperature increases.
"So far, the global response has fallen far short of meeting this challenge," they said.
Following the announcement, the Bulletin took to its website to share advice on how we can help turn back the hands of the clock by its next reassessment in January of 2019.
"The failure of world leaders to address the largest threats to humanity’s future is lamentable," it wrote, "but that failure can be reversed."
"Leaders react when citizens insist they do so, and citizens around the world can use the power of the internet to improve the long-term prospects of their children and grandchildren," the Bulletin suggested. "They can insist on facts, and discount nonsense. They can demand action to reduce the existential threat of nuclear war and unchecked climate change. They can seize the opportunity to make a safer and saner world."
Read the full statement here.
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