‘Doomsday Clock’ edges closer to Armageddon as Trump’s erratic moves raise chance of nuclear war
The clock – which shows how close humanity is to annihilation – has not been this close to ‘midnight’ since the cold war, thanks to nuclear woes and climate change
Mounting concerns about the possibility of a nuclear war, along with US President Donald Trump’s “unpredictability,” have pushed the symbolic “Doomsday Clock” to two minutes before midnight, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists said on Thursday.
The clock – which serves as a metaphor for how close humanity is to destroying the planet – was moved forward by 30 seconds, to as near as it has ever been to the hour of the apocalypse.
“In 2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change, making the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year ago – and as dangerous as it has been since World War II,” said a statement by the group of intellectuals across the fields of international affairs, science, environment and security.
The last time the clock was at two minutes to midnight was in 1953, when the United States and Soviet Union were testing hydrogen bombs.
“In this year’s discussions, nuclear issues took centre-stage once again,” Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, told reporters.