2023 'Doomsday Clock': This is how close we are to the apocalypse, scientists say
by Admin
Posted on 20-09-2023 12:36 PM
Scientists revealed on tuesday that the "
doomsday
clock" has been moved up to 90 seconds before midnight -- the closest humanity has ever been to armageddon. Bulletin of the atomic scientists moved the metaphorical clock up 10 seconds from where it had stayed for the past two years, citing the escalation in russia's invasion of ukraine in february of 2022. "russia's thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons remind the world that escalation of the conflict by accident, intention or calculation is a terrible risk," said rachel bronson, president and ceo of the bulletin of the atomic scientists.
"the possibilities that the conflict can spin out of anyone's control remains high.
The doomsday clock has been ticking for exactly 75 years. But it’s no ordinary clock. It attempts to gauge how close humanity is to destroying the world. On thursday, the clock was set at 100 seconds until midnight – the same time it has been since 2020. The clock isn’t designed to definitively measure existential threats, but rather to spark conversations about difficult scientific topics such as climate change, according to the bulletin of atomic scientists, which created the clock in 1947. “one hundred seconds to midnight reflects the board’s judgment that we are stuck in a perilous moment – one that brings neither stability nor security.
The bulletin of the atomic scientists was founded by a group of atomic scientists who worked on the manhattan project, the code name for the development of the atomic bomb during world war ii. Originally, the organization was conceived to measure nuclear threats, but in 2007 the bulletin made the decision to include climate change in its calculations. Over the last three-quarters of a century, the clock’s time has changed according to how close the scientists believe the human race is to total destruction. Some years the time changes, and some years it doesn’t. The doomsday clock is set every year by the experts on the bulletin’s science and security board in consultation with its board of sponsors, which includes 11 nobel laureates.
Doomsday clock, symbolic clock adopted by atomic scientists to show how close human beings are considered to be to a global catastrophe , with midnight standing for annihilation, or “doomsday. ” metaphorically, the clock’s minute hand moves closer to or farther from midnight, depending on the level of threat thought to be posed by nuclear weapons , climate change , or disruptive technologies. Since its invention in 1947, the clock has been reset 25 times. In january 2023 the clock was set to 90 seconds before midnight, the closest it has ever been to doomsday.
MORE: 2021's 'Doomsday Clock' stuck at 100 seconds to midnight, scientists say
The world is closer to annihilation than it has ever been since the first nuclear bombs were released at the close of world war ii, the bulletin of the atomic scientists said tuesday.
The time on the doomsday clock moved forward from 100 seconds to midnight to 90 seconds to midnight. It’s a reset of what has come to be known as the doomsday clock, a decades long project of the bulletin of the atomic scientists featuring a clock face where midnight represents armageddon. Between russia's nuclear brinkmanship in its war on ukraine, the real threats of climate change becoming increasingly dire and ongoing concerns about more possible pandemics caused by humans encroaching on formerly wild areas, the bulletin chose to set the clock the closest to midnight yet.
While the doomsday clock is perilously close to midnight, it is not as close as uk prime minister boris johnson recently suggested in his cop26 opening remarks. "humanity has long since run down the clock on climate change," johnson said. "it's one minute to midnight on that doomsday clock and we need to act now. "the bulletin of the atomic scientists is in complete agreement with the sentiment that "we need to act now," but would like to clarify that the doomsday clock, which it created in 1947, is currently set at 100 seconds to midnight. The clock, a powerful symbol for how close humanity is to self-annihilation, is set by the bulletin's science and security board once a year.