3 minutes to midnight nuclear war update#

In total, in the past sixty-nine years, the clock has been changed twenty-two times, giving the world an easy way to gauge the likelihood that our species will destroy itself. At the end of the Cold War, in 1991, it was turned back to 11:43, or seventeen minutes to midnight (its furthest from doomsday). That year, it was set at 11:53, or “seven minutes to midnight.” In 1953, following American and Soviet tests of the hydrogen bomb, the clock reached 11:58, or two minutes to midnight (the closest to doomsday it’s ever been). In 1947, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published, on its cover, a “Doomsday Clock.” The clock was designed to represent the existential threat to humanity posed by nuclear weapons. 'It's late and it's getting later and we have to wake people up,' Brown said.The Doomsday Clock in 2002, when it was set at 11:53. And they urgently require global efforts to find solutions - before the clock runs out for us all, the BAS experts warn. While the Doomsday Clock is fictional, the problems it represents are all too real. In 1991, the hands swung all the way back to 17 minutes before midnight, a testament to emerging global partnerships to end the Cold War and reduce nuclear arsenals.īut in the decades since, the hands have crept steadily forward. However, we are also capable of turning back the clock. It was originally created as a cover illustration for the Journal of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists about the risks posed by nuclear weapons today, the clock remains a sobering reminder of the danger we pose to ourselves - and to the planet. Since 1947, the Doomsday Clock has presented the changing steps in humanity's ongoing dance with global disaster. 17 that factors triggered by climate change could claim the lives of approximately 250,000 people worldwide each year, and could force more than 100 million people into extreme poverty over the next 12 years. Indeed, scientists said in a study published on Jan. Ocean temperatures are at their warmest since record-keeping began in the 1950s, and that warmth is fueling more powerful storms.Īnd after investigating 275 studies conducted over the past nine years, scientists recently warned in a report of a looming climate crisis that will endanger millions of lives, through extreme weather events, drought, pollution and sea-level rise, Live Science previously reported. As the Arctic warms, vast reservoirs of soil-stored carbon could be released into the atmosphere, further accelerating warming. Ice in Antarctica and in Greenland is vanishing faster than anticipated. Throughout 2018, reports describing the devastating impacts of climate change and the dangers of failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, have accumulated at an alarming rate. Solomon's words shouldn't come as a surprise. in particular, failing to curb carbon emissions and pouring resources into bolstering infrastructure that relies on fossil fuels is an act of 'gross negligence,' Solomon said. 'Deeply alarming'Īs for climate change, developments over the past year have been 'deeply alarming,' BAS board member Susan Solomon, a professor of Environmental Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said at the event.įor the U.S. and Russia - the countries holding 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons - remain tense, raising the possibility of nuclear conflict, Squassoni added. and North Korea over nuclear arsenals has eased since 2017, but overall reliance on nuclear weapons has risen around the world, and a 'Cold War mindset' threatens to undo decades of work to mitigate the risk of nuclear war, Sharon Squassoni, a member of the BAS Science and Security Board and a professor with the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy at The George Washington University, said at the press event. Jerry Brown, BAS executive chair, said in the statement. 'The longer world leaders and citizens thoughtlessly inhabit this abnormal reality, the more likely it is that we will experience the unthinkable,' former California Gov. Together, these threats have shaped a dangerous and unsustainable status quo that BAS experts dubbed 'the new abnormal,' Bronson told reporters following the announcement. In 2018, they found that the twin threats of looming nuclear war and a warming world continued to push the planet toward destruction. (Image credit: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

3 minutes to midnight nuclear war update#

Jerry Brown and Robert Rosner present the 2019 update to the Doomsday Clock.