Citing a more “hopeful state of world affairs” in relation to the twin threats posed by nuclear weapons and climate change, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved the minute hand of its famous Doomsday Clock one minute away from midnight. It is now 6 minutes to midnight. The decision by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board was made in consultation with the Bulletin’s Board of Sponsors, which includes 19 Nobel Laureates.
The BAS Board said: “It is 6 minutes to midnight. We are poised to bend the arc of history toward a world free of nuclear weapons. For the first time since atomic bombs were dropped in 1945, leaders of nuclear weapons states are cooperating to vastly reduce their arsenals and secure all nuclear bomb-making material. And for the first time ever, industrialized and developing countries alike are pledging to limit climate-changing gas emissions that could render our planet nearly uninhabitable. These unprecedented steps are signs of a growing political will to tackle the two gravest threats to civilization–the terror of nuclear weapons and runaway climate change.”
Created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Doomsday Clock has been adjusted only 18 times before, most recently in January 2007 and February 2002 after the events of 9/11.
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