WASHINGTON: The “Doomsday Clock” representing how near humanity is to catastrophe on Tuesday moved closer than ever to midnight as concerns grow on nuclear weapons, climate change and disinformation.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which set up the metaphorical clock at the start of the Cold War, moved its time to 85 seconds to midnight — four seconds closer than a year ago.
The announcement comes a year into President Donald Trump’s second term in which he has shattered global norms including by ordering unilateral attacks and withdrawing from a slew of international organisations.
Russia, China the United States and other major countries have “become increasingly aggressive, adversarial and nationalistic,” said a statement announcing the clock shift, determined after consultations with a board that includes eight Nobel laureates.
“Hard-won global understandings are collapsing, accelerating a winner-takes-all great power competition and undermining the international cooperation critical to reducing the risks of nuclear war, climate change, the misuse of biotechnology, the potential threat of artificial intelligence and other apocalyptic dangers.”
The Doomsday Clock board warned of heightened risks of a nuclear arms race, with the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia set to expire next week and Trump pushing a costly “Golden Dome” missile defense system that would further militarise space.
It also noted the record emission levels of carbon dioxide, the key driver of the planet’s warming temperatures, after Trump sharply reversed US policy on fighting climate change and a number of other countries also backtracked.
Board members warned of a fracturing of global trust.
“We are living through an information Armageddon — the crisis beneath all crises — driven by extractive and predatory technology that spreads lies faster than facts and profits from our division,” said Maria Ressa, the Filipina investigative journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, founded by Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer and other nuclear scientists at the University of Chicago, initially placed the clock at seven minutes to midnight in 1947.
It was moved closer last year but by only one second, amid guarded hopes on newly reinaugurated Trump’s promises to pursue peace.
