The symbolic Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has been moved closer to midnight, a statement of how close the planet is to a global disaster. “It is now three minutes to midnight,” said Kennette Benedict, the executive director and publisher of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “The probability of global catastrophe is very high. This is about the end of civilization as we know it.”
The clock was moved closer to midnight because of “unchecked climate change” and the “threat of nuclear weapons. It is the closest to midnight it has been since 1984 during the “cold war.” The only time it was closer (two minutes to midnight) was in 1953 when the hydrogen bomb was first tested.
The doomsday clock was created in 1947 using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the countdown to convey threats to humanity and the earth.
“World leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe,” said the Bulletin. “These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth.”
The clock was moved from six minutes to five minutes to midnight in 2012 in response to nuclear proliferation and climate change.
“When ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.” Matthew 24:33
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