Humanity is closer to annihilation than ever before, according to the scientists behind the “Doomsday Clock”.
The time has moved to 100 seconds to midnight – much nearer to catastrophe than the scientists have set the clock in the nearly 70 years it has been around. It had previously been set at two minutes to midnight, which was as close as it had ever been, and matched the danger during the depths of the Cold War.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the experts who set the time, said that the change reflected increasing concern about climate change, global warfare, misinformation and more.
Ban Ki-moon, the former UN general-secretary who helped reveal the new time, wrote in The Independent that the change of time should serve as a “wake-up call for the world”.
“The decision to move the hands of the Doomsday Clock is backed by rigorous scientific scrutiny, and demands an equally rigorous multilateral response,” he wrote.
More follows…
