Doomsday Clock set closer to midnight than ever before thanks to threat of nuclear weapons and climate change

The symbolic Doomsday Clock, which represents how close humanity is to self-destruction, has been set at a record low.

The hand was moved by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who run the clock, to 100 seconds before midnight – a.k.a the apocalypse.

It is largely down to what the Bulletin call ‘worldwide governmental dysfunction in dealing with global threats’ including nuclear warfare and climate change.

Before 2020, the closest the hand was set to midnight was two minutes, in 1953, after the United States and the Soviet Union each tested their first thermonuclear weapons within six months of one another.

It dropped again to two minutes in 2018, largely due to nuclear risk and the rising threat of climate change.

“Today the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the hands of the Doomsday Clock. It is 100 Seconds to Midnight,” — @RachelBronson1, President & CEO, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists#DoomsdayClock pic.twitter.com/bxlf9TvEZu

— Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (@BulletinAtomic) January 23, 2020

The Bulletin’s President Rachel Bronson said in a statement: “It is 100 seconds to midnight. We are now expressing how close the world is to catastrophe in seconds — not hours, or even minutes.

“We now face a true emergency – an absolutely unacceptable state of world affairs that has eliminated any margin for error or further delay.”

The clock was first created in 1947, where the main factor considered before moving it forwards or backwards was the threat of nuclear weapons.

The Bulletin had been founded two years earlier by University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the first atomic weapons.

The imagery of a clock counting down was used to convey the idea of the threat humanity and the planet faced.

It was set at seven minutes to midnight, with the US and Soviet Union heading into a nuclear arms race at the time.

The decision to move (or to leave in place) the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock is made every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 13 Nobel laureates.

With a few exceptions, it generally hovered between five and ten minutes throughout the 60s and 70s.

Throughout the 80s and the Cold War it dropped down to three minutes, but by 1991 it was back at 17 minutes.

In 2007, the threat of climate change was factored in, with cyber attacks, artificial intelligence and gene editing considered in recent years.

In 2018 and 2019 the clock was set at two minutes to midnight, before today’s drop to a record low.