The Doomsday Clock is now at 100 seconds to midnight
5Reported today on The Verge
For the full article visit: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/23/21078482/doomsday-clock-midnight-climate-change-information-warfare-nuclear-arms
Reported today in The Verge.
The Doomsday Clock is now at 100 seconds to midnight
Humanity is now 100 seconds away from the apocalypse, according to the Doomsday Clock, which was updated today. That's 20 metaphorical seconds closer to the moment humans destroy the planet, at least according to a group of scientists who keep track of the many ways humanity might bring about its own end.
This is the closest humans have been to the end of days - aka midnight - according to the nonprofit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The Bulletin's science and security board convened in November to decide what time to set the clock. The time was set long before heightened military actions between the US and Iran and before North Korea's decision to end its freeze on nuclear testing. Those events only confirmed the Bulletin's consensus that humanity is in graver danger than ever before, board member Sharon Squassoni said. But they also seemed to suggest that the clock's meager move might have lowballed the risks at hand.
The organization started the clock in 1947 as the nuclear arms race began, and it has since focused on risks from nuclear technology and climate change. This year, concerns over Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs and disintegrating cooperation between the US and Russia on disarmament prompted the Bulletin's board of scientists and experts to move the clock forward. So, too, did inadequate action on climate change.
"I must say as I listened to the excellent but devastating presentation of the scientists, I felt more and more a strong personal reaction - the reaction of an angry granny," former president of Ireland and climate action advocate Mary Robinson said at the announcement. "This is not acceptable." Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and former Cal