The atomic scientists on Tuesday (Jan 22) kept their “Doomsday Clock” set as close to midnight as ever before. The clock has stayed at 90 seconds to midnight, which is the closest it had been since it was established in 1947.
The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic countdown to human extinction. It is a sheer representation of the likelihood of a human-made global catastrophe.
Last year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the clock at 90 seconds to midnight, which is the theoretical point of annihilation.
The clock reflects a continuing and unprecedented level of risk.
The Bulletin was founded in 1945 by scientists including Albert Einstein and J Robert Oppenheimer and the clock was built two years later, during the Cold War tensions to warn the public about how close humanity was to destroying the planet.
The scientists have cited the existential threats to humanity posed by potential nuclear escalation from the wars, including the Russia-Ukraine war, the Middle east conflict, and the climate crisis – all the factors that are driving the risk of global catastrophe.
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Rachel Bronson, the president and CEO of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, said: “Trends continue to point ominously towards global catastrophe.”
“The war in Ukraine poses an ever present risk of nuclear escalation, and the October 7 attack in Israel and war in Gaza provides further illustration of the horrors of modern war, even without nuclear escalation,” Bronson said.
“Rather than abandoning nuclear weapons, countries that possess them are upgrading their arsenals and threatening to create a new arms race, while massive floods, fires and other disasters marked the hottest year on record by far, with little meaningful action on climate change,” she added.
“Biological research aimed at preventing future pandemics has proven useful, but also presents the risks of causing one,” she further said.
She further added that the recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) raise questions about how to control a technology “that could improve or threaten civilization in countless ways.”
The Doomsday Clock operates as a wake-up call about global threats like a nuclear war, dangerous technologies and mass health concerns.
The clock is reset around the same time in January each year by varying lengths to signal how close the human race is to self-destruction by its distance from midnight.
(With inputs from agencies)
