Doomsday Clock is nearer midnight

Nuclear weapons, Trump and climate change raise alarm

WASHINGTON // Atomic scientists yesterday reset their symbolic Doomsday Clock to its closest time to midnight in 64 years, saying the world was closer to catastrophe because of threats such as nuclear weapons, climate change and Donald Trump’s election.

The timepiece, devised by the Chicago-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and displayed on its website, is widely viewed as an indicator of the world’s vulnerability to disaster.

Its hands were moved to two minutes and 30 seconds to midnight, from three minutes.

“The Doomsday Clock is closer to midnight than it’s been in the lifetime of almost everyone in this room,” said Lawrence Krauss, the bulletin’s chairman, in Washington.

The clock was last set this close to midnight in 1953, the start of the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Yesterday’s reset was the first since 2015. Mr Krauss, a theoretical physicist, said Mr Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin carried a large share of the blame for the heightened threat.

The bulletin cited nuclear volatility, especially as the US and Russia seek to modernise their atomic arsenals and remain at odds in war-torn countries such as Syria and Ukraine. Mr Trump has suggested South Korea and Japan could acquire nuclear weapons to compete with North Korea, which has conducted nuclear tests. He has also raised doubts about the future of a multilateral nuclear pact with Iran.

The climate change outlook was somewhat less dismal, “but only somewhat”. While nations had taken actions to combat climate change, the bulletin noted, there appeared to be little appetite for additional cuts to carbon dioxide emissions.

It said the Trump administration nominees raise the possibility the government will be “openly hostile to progress toward even the most modest efforts to avert catastrophic climate disruption”.

The bulletin was founded by scientists who helped develop the US’s first atomic weapons.