The Doomsday Clock Just Moved Closer to Midnight. Here's What You Need to Know
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the doomsday clock closer to midnight on Thursday morning, warning the world that it is as close to catastrophe in 2018 as it has ever been.
Scientists cited growing nuclear threats, climate change and a lack of trust in political institutions as they explained the increasing urgency.
The doomsday clock — which tracks the world’s vulnerability to existential threats — was last updated on Jan. 26, 2017 to stand at two-and-a-half minutes to midnight, inching closer to midnight largely because of President Donald Trump’s election. In the 2017 announcement, scientists warned of the threats posed by nuclear weapons, climate change and global disinformation campaigns.
“In 2017, we find the danger to be even greater, the need for action more urgent,” the scientists wrote last year. “It is two and a half minutes to midnight, the Clock is ticking, global danger looms. Wise public officials should act immediately, guiding humanity away from the brink. If they do not, wise citizens must step forward and lead the way.”
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, founded by scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons, has been moving the clock closer to and further from midnight for more than 70 years.
The clock was first set in 1947 at seven minutes to midnight, serving as a warning about nuclear weapons. It has fluctuated since then, coming closest to midnight — just two minutes away — in 1953, after the U.S. tested the first hydrogen bomb, and now in 2018. “Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization,” the atomic scientists wrote at the time.
The doomsday clock’s 2018 position is likely to factor in Trump’s repeated threats of war against North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as well as his reversal of the Obama Administration’s efforts to stop climate change.
The doomsday clock 2018 announcement will be streamed live beginning at 10 a.m. E.T.
