The Doomsday Clock, a symbolic instrument used to signal how close the world is to a catastrophic disaster, is closer to midnight than it has been in 64 years. The board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the minute hand 30 seconds forward in an announcement on Thursday.
The clock is now set at 2 1/2 minutes from the “final hour” and reflects the group’s growing concerns about global nuclear security and climate change. The Bulletin’s timing comes in the wake of President Donald Trump’s first week in office, it said in a statement:
Disturbing comments about the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons made by Donald Trump, as well as the expressed disbelief in the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change by both Trump and several of his cabinet appointees, affected the Board’s decision, as did the emergence of strident nationalism worldwide.
The clock’s minute hand moved from 5 minutes out to 3 minutes in 2015 over concerns about the deterioration in relations between the U.S. and Russia. It was the closest it had been since 1984, during the nuclear arms race of the early ’80s.
Read the 2017 Doomsday Clock Statement: https://t.co/0tAZlY96Xw #DoomsdayClock pic.twitter.com/exqw429cdM
— BulletinOfTheAtomic (@BulletinAtomic) January 26, 2017
In 1953, the minute hand was 2 minutes away from midnight following hydrogen bomb tests by the U.S. and Russia.
The clock’s hand was set at 7 minutes to midnight when it was created in 1947. According to the BBC, it has since been changed 22 times, with the furthest time out being 17 minutes before midnight in 1991.
In an op-ed in The New York Times, board members Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist, and David Titley, a climate scientist and meteorologist, addressed the impact of Trump.
“Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the clock largely because of the statements of a single person. But when that person is the new president of the United States, his words matter.”
Watch Rachel Bronson, executive director and publisher of the Bulletin, and other board members in Thursday’s announcement (starting at 14-minute mark of video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGcaVZAjMbA
