Last Thursday, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which takes stock of the threats posed by nuclear war and climate change each year, moved the Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds before midnight.

We are now measuring how close the world is to catastrophe in seconds — not hours, or even minutes. It is the closest to Doomsday we have ever been since the clock was created in 1947.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which was founded by those who worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II, and now includes 13 Nobel Laureates on the board, issued a statement on Thursday that read:

“Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear war and climate change—that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond. The international security situation is dire, not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode.”

In 2018, the Doomsday Clock moved to 2 minutes to midnight, as close as it has ever been in the clock’s history because of two existential threats to humanity – nuclear risk and climate change. Read the rest of this entry »