"Doomsday Clock" Moves Even Closer to Armageddon
Politics | January 18, 2007, ThursdayThe world is five minutes away from a nuclear apocalypse and environmental disaster as the hands of the symbolic Doomsday Clock have been pushed two minutes closer to midnight.
The warning came from a trans-Atlantic group of prominent scientists on Wednesday, amid fears over what the scientists are describing as "a second nuclear age" prompted mainly by atomic disagreements with Iran and North Korea.
It was the fourth time since the end of the Cold War that the clock has ticked forward, this time from 11:53 to 11:55.
The organization warned that the "dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons."
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded in 1945 as a newsletter distributed among nuclear physicists concerned by the possibility of nuclear war, has since grown into an organization focused more generally on manmade threats to the survival of human civilization.
"As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth," said Stephen Hawking, the renowned cosmologist and mathematician.
The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clockface maintained since 1947 by the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago. It uses the analogy of the human race being at a time that is "minutes to midnight" where midnight represents destruction by nuclear war.
The bulletin's clock, which for 60 years has followed the rise and fall of nuclear tensions, would now also measure climate change, the bulletin's editor Mark Strauss said.
The decisions to move the clock is made by the bulletin's board, which is composed of prominent scientists and policy experts, in coordination with the group's sponsors.
Since it was set to seven minutes to midnight in 1947, the hand has been moved 18 times, including Wednesday's move.
It came closest to midnight - just two minutes away - in 1953, following the successful test of a hydrogen bomb by the United States. It has been as far away as 17 minutes, set there in 1991 following the downfall of the Soviet Union.
The warning came from a trans-Atlantic group of prominent scientists on Wednesday, amid fears over what the scientists are describing as "a second nuclear age" prompted mainly by atomic disagreements with Iran and North Korea.
It was the fourth time since the end of the Cold War that the clock has ticked forward, this time from 11:53 to 11:55.
The organization warned that the "dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons."
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded in 1945 as a newsletter distributed among nuclear physicists concerned by the possibility of nuclear war, has since grown into an organization focused more generally on manmade threats to the survival of human civilization.
"As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth," said Stephen Hawking, the renowned cosmologist and mathematician.
The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clockface maintained since 1947 by the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago. It uses the analogy of the human race being at a time that is "minutes to midnight" where midnight represents destruction by nuclear war.
The bulletin's clock, which for 60 years has followed the rise and fall of nuclear tensions, would now also measure climate change, the bulletin's editor Mark Strauss said.
The decisions to move the clock is made by the bulletin's board, which is composed of prominent scientists and policy experts, in coordination with the group's sponsors.
Since it was set to seven minutes to midnight in 1947, the hand has been moved 18 times, including Wednesday's move.
It came closest to midnight - just two minutes away - in 1953, following the successful test of a hydrogen bomb by the United States. It has been as far away as 17 minutes, set there in 1991 following the downfall of the Soviet Union.
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