In the face of blatant nuclear threats from Russian President Vladimir Putin, the hands of the so-called “doomsday clock” have been advanced to 90 seconds to midnight. The researchers of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists changed the symbolic time until the end of the earth from 100 seconds for the first time in three years.
“Nuclear risks have increased significantly over the past year, largely due to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” said Professor Steve Fetter of the University of Maryland in Washington, DC. Putin has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons to prevent the US and its NATO allies from intervening in the Ukraine war. “It’s not a bluff,” Fetter said.
Symbolic clock since 1947
The symbolic status of the clock is communicated once a year. In 2018 and 2019 the clock showed two minutes to twelve. In 2020, the clock was symbolically put forward to 100 seconds before midnight for the first time. The risk of humanity wiping itself out as a result of nuclear war or climate change is greater than at any time since the clock was invented in 1947.
Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP) had already referred to the danger of a nuclear escalation on Sunday on the occasion of the second anniversary of the entry into force of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty: “Threats with nuclear weapons are extremely dangerous,” said Schallenberg, according to the broadcast. “Not only are they completely morally unacceptable, they also lower the inhibition threshold for others and clearly violate international law. There is no alternative to nuclear disarmament, because as long as these terrible weapons exist, they are a threat to all of us. We must destroy them before they destroy us.”
