Doomsday clock ticks closer to destruction

Global emergency is 100 seconds to ‘midnight’

The world is 100 seconds to “midnight,” according to the Doomsday Clock, closer to destruction than at any point since the clock was created in 1947.

Each year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a nonprofit group that sets the clock, decides whether the events of the previous year pushed humanity closer to or further from destruction. The clock “conveys how close we are to destroying our civilization with dangerous technologies of our own making,” according to the group.

This year, the group moved the clock from two minutes to 100 seconds to midnight. The closer to midnight we are, the more danger we’re in, according to the Bulletin.

“We are now expressing how close the world is to catastrophe in seconds – not hours or even minutes,” said Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “It is the closest to Doomsday we have ever been in the history of the Doomsday Clock.

“We now face a true emergency – an absolutely unacceptable state of world affairs that has eliminated any margin for error or further delay.”

In a statement, the Bulletin said, “Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers – nuclear war and climate change – that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond.

“Civilization-ending nuclear war – whether started by design, blunder or simple miscommunication – is a genuine possibility,” the group said. “Climate change that could devastate the planet is undeniably happening. And for a variety of reasons that include a corrupted and manipulated media environment, democratic governments and other institutions that should be working to address these threats have failed to rise to the challenge.”

The furthest the clock has been from midnight was 17 minutes in 1991, near the end of the Cold War.

The Doomsday Clock has moved closer to midnight in three of the past four years.

The Doomsday Clock did not move in 2019 after its minute hand was set forward in 2018 by 30 seconds, to two minutes before midnight.

The clock has been maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1947.

The group was founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first nuclear weapons in the Manhattan Project.

The scientists created the clock in 1947, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and a nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the Earth.

The decision was made by the board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, along with input from a board of sponsors that includes 13 Nobel Laureates.