New York, United States.- The Doomsday Clock, which symbolically measures the end of the world, marked this Tuesday that humanity has never been so close to a planetary cataclysm due to the war in Ukraine, nuclear tensions and the climate crisis.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which describes the clock as a “metaphor for humanity’s closeness to self-annihilation,” moved the 100-second hands to 90 seconds to midnight.
Each year, the Bulletin’s science and safety board and its patrons, which include 11 Nobel laureates, make the decision to reposition the hands of this symbolic clock.
One notice after another
Until now, the closest it has gotten to midnight, the fateful hour they hope will never come, has been 100 seconds. She was two years since January 2020.
But things have gotten worse. In a statement, the Bulletin says it is moving the hands forward this year “due in large part, but not exclusively, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the heightened risk of nuclear escalation.”
Also weighing “the continued threats posed by the climate crisis and the collapse of global norms and institutions necessary to mitigate the risks associated with advancing technologies and biological threats such as Covid-19,” he added.
He also mentions disinformation and surveillance technologies.
“We live in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock reflects that reality,” said Rachel Bronson, the Bulletin’s president and CEO.
“90 seconds to midnight is as close to midnight as the clock has been set, and it’s a decision our experts don’t take lightly.”
“The US government, its NATO allies and Ukraine have a multitude of channels for dialogue,” he said. “We urge leaders to explore all of them to their fullest capacity to turn back the clock.”
That is why the group’s statement is available for the first time in English, Russian and Ukrainian.
like a doctor
Former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also called on world leaders to take action in a world made more dangerous by Covid-19, extreme weather events and Russia’s “heinous war against Ukraine.” “.
“Leaders did not heed the Doomsday Clock warnings in 2020,” Ban said. “We all continue to pay the price. In 2023 it is vital for the good of all that they act.”
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, also highlighted the change in the hands of the clock.
In a statement, its chief executive, Beatrice Fihn, said they are “fed up” with no action being taken after the clock warnings.
“The leaders of the nuclear weapon states must urgently negotiate nuclear disarmament, and the G7 meeting in Hiroshima in May 2023 is the perfect place to outline that plan,” Fihn said.
On Twitter the news received some skeptical comments, questioning the usefulness of the watch or its reliability.
“We do not predict the future,” the panel notes on its website, anticipating criticism. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists “is something like a doctor making a diagnosis.
“We look at data in the same way that doctors look at lab tests and X-rays, and we also take into account factors that are more difficult to quantify, just like doctors do when talking to patients and family members.
“Then we arrive at a sentence that summarizes what could happen if the leaders and the citizens do not act to cure the diseases,” the scientists explain.
In its beginnings, in 1947, after World War II, it was seven minutes to midnight. The clock reached 17 minutes to doomsday after the Cold War in 1991.
The Bulletin was founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and other scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project that produced the first nuclear weapons.
