Closer to the End of the World? The “Doomsday Clock” is about to move

The “Doomsday Clock” or “The Doomsday Clock“, which for 75 years has been monitoring the probability of the extinction of Humanitywill be updated on January 24 to determine our destination, following having stayed at “100 seconds to midnight” for the past three years.

It is believed that this year The Doomsday Clock It will move even closer to the Apocalypse due to the more than alarming panorama: Russia’s war once morest Ukraine that threatens to become a nuclear conflagration, increasingly deadly weather phenomena and the covid pandemic that continues to mutate, infect and kill.

the clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientistsemerged in 1947 as a “metaphor for how close humanity is to self-annihilation”was originally set at seven minutes to midnight and has since been moved 24 times (eight times backwards and 16 times forwards).

The “Doomsday Clock” or “End of the World”, which for 75 years has been monitoring the probability of the extinction of Humanity. In 2020, the Clock was set 100 seconds to midnight, the closest we’ve ever come to total destruction, and it stayed there in 2021.

In 1947, scientists established the clock to provide a simple way to demonstrate the danger posed by nuclear war to Earth and humanity.

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At the height of the Cold War, in 1953, the Clock was 2 minutes from the End of the World and the furthest it got from “midnight” was when it moved to 17 minutes earlier at the end of the same war. In 2020 it reached the closest to catastrophe (100 seconds) and has remained there for the last three years.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced that by 2023 it would take into account the Russian-Ukrainian war, biological threats, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the growing climate threat, state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, and disruptive technologies.

The organization -which currently includes 16 Nobel laureates- was founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J Robert Oppenheimer and other scientists who worked on the “Manhattan Project,” which produced the first nuclear weapons during World War II.

The clock is a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophes caused by nuclear weapons, climate change and emerging technologies in the life sciences.

The decision to move, or stand still, is made by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, in consultation with the bulletin’s Board of Sponsors, which includes 16 Nobel laureates.

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The clock was created artist Martyl Langsdorf charged with “scaring men into rationality,” according to Eugene Rabinowitch, first editor of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. The design is simple, only the hours of the last quarter before midnight are shown on the dial.

“For 75 years, the Doomsday Clock has acted as a metaphor for how close humanity is to self-annihilation,” the website reads. And adds: “Since 1947, it has also served as a call to action to reverse the needles, which have been moved backwards before.”

Langsdorf decided to place the minute hand at 7 for visual purposes and two years later, Rabinowitch moved it to 3 minutes.

The Doomsday Clock was created by the Bulletin, an independent, non-profit organization run by some of the world’s most eminent scientists.

The Doomsday Clock not only takes into account the probability of nuclear Armageddon, but also other emerging threats, such as climate change and advances in biotechnology and artificial intelligence.

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The time is determined taking into consideration all the events that have happened throughout the year in the political, energy, arms, scientific, climate fields, together with possible sources of threats such as nuclear bombs, climate change, bioterrorism or artificial intelligence.

Doomsday clock moved to 100 seconds to midnight in January 2020 and remained that way in part due to a “lack of action” by humanity in the face of the coronavirus crisis. That meant the Earth was closer to extinction than ever since the early days of hydrogen bomb testing and 1984, when US-USSR relations reached their most critical point.

How has the Doomsday Clock moved since 1947?

• 1947-1948: 7 minutes
• 1949-1952: 3 minutes
• 1953-1959: 2 minutes
• 1960-1962: 7 minutes
• 1963-1967: 12 minutes
• 1968: 7 minutes
• 1969-1971: 10 minutes
• 1972-1973: 12 minutes
• 1974-1979: 9 minutes
• 1980: 7 minutes
• 1981-1983: 4 minutes
• 1984-1987: 3 minutes
• 1988-1989: 6 minutes
• 1990: 10 minutes
• 1991-1994: 17 minutes
• 1995-1997: 14 minutes
• 1998-2001: 9 minutes
• 2002-2006: 7 minutes
• 2007-2009: 5 minutes
• 2010-2011: 6 minutes
• 2012-2014: 5 minutes
• 2015-2016: 3 minutes
• 2017: 2.5 minutes
• 2018: 2 minutes
• 2019: 2 minutes
• 2020: 100 seconds

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