Global “Doomsday” edges closer

“This is about doomsday; this is about the end of civilization as we know it,” bulletin executive director Kennette Benedict

Scientists have moved the “Doomsday Clock” another two minutes closer to the end fo the world. The time is now just 3 minutes to midnight

The scientists controlling the theoretical doomsday clock, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said they are concerned with the lack of progress both on climate change and of efforts to shrink nuclear arsenals.

“Despite some modestly positive developments in the climate change arena last year, reflecting continued advancement oif renewable energy technologies, current efforts are entirely insufficient to prevent a catastrophic warming of the Earth. Absent a dramatic course correction, the countries of the world will have emitted enough carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses by the end of this century to profoundly transform the Earth’s climate, harming millions and millions of people and threatening many key ecological systems on which civilization relies. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Kennette Benedict is the executive director of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and announced the change at a news conference in Washington DC late last week. “We are not saying it is too late to take action but the window for action is closing rapidly,” she said, “We move the clock hand today to inspire action.”

Originally created by an international group of scientists who worked on the atomic bomb, it first appeared in 1947. The closest it has been set was at 2 minutes to midnight in 1953 when the US and Soviet Union tested nuclear bombs within months of each other. The clock was moved back to its farthest setting of 17 minutes to midnight in 1991 when the US and Soviet Union signed  the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, followed by the dissolution of Soviet Union.

The very deadly threat of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 was initiated and resolved before the scientists could meet to determine a clock setting.

The clock- which acts as a metaphor of humanity’s march towards a possible technically created global disaster was originally concerned only with the threat of a nuclear holocaust, Since 2007, climate change factors have also been considered.

Previously set at 5 minutes to midnight, last week was the first time the hands had been moved in three years by Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists which meets twice annually to discuss global events relating to humanity’s threat to it’s own survival.

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