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Topics: World News, Weird, Science, Global Warming, Environment
As we just about settle in to the new year we have been reminded about the threats facing human survival.
Yes that's right, the aptly named Doomsday Clock has been updated by key scientists tasked with identifying threats to our existence.
The bleak, but necessary annual update came from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists with a purpose of 'equipping the public, policymakers, and scientists with the information needed to reduce man-made threats to our existence'. This includes climate change and nuclear weapons.
So what the Doomsday Clock does is show us just how close humanity is to global catastrophe, caused by ourselves. In 2023, we were set 90 seconds away from annihilation. Not good.
Before last year's January update, we enjoyed a bit of calm sitting at 100 seconds to midnight for two years in a row.
For 2024, we've once again been left at 90 seconds away from armageddon. Things need to improve, and fast.
Doomsday Clock updated
Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said: "Countries with nuclear weapons are engaged in modernisation programmes that threaten to create a new nuclear arms race.
"Earth experienced its hottest year on record and massive floods, fires, and other disasters have taken root.
"And lack of action on climate change threatens billions of lives and livelihoods.
"Preventing future pandemics has proven useful but it also presents the risk of causing one.
"And recent advances in recent artificial intelligence raise a variety of questions about how to control a technology that could improve or threaten civilisation in countless ways."
breaking news
The Doomsday Clock remains at 90 seconds to midnight.
Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said the reason for this is the continuing threat posed by nuclear weapons, climate change, AI, ongoing conflict, and future pandemics.
The Trinity Test and Manhattan Project - the focus of Oscar nominated epic Oppenheimer - are currently being discussed on the Doomsday Clock conference announcement.
Trinity was the first ever detonation of a nuclear weapon and thus the beginning of the Atomic Age.
It spurred on the need for a Doomsday Clock, given the gravity of the danger nuclear weapons pose.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will announce the latest on the Doomsday Clock within a matter of minutes.
Currently, there is a slight delay with it meant to have started at 3pm.
In the early days, Editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Eugene Rabinowitch, decided when the hand would be moved.
Rabinowitch was a scientist himself, fluent in Russian, and a leader in the international disarmament movement.
He had been in constant conversation with scientists and experts within and outside governments in many parts of the world. Based on these discussions, he decided where the clock hand should be set and explained his thinking in the Bulletin’s pages.
When Rabinowitch died in 1973, the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board took over the responsibility and has since met twice a year to discuss world events and reset the clock, as necessary.
The board is made up of scientists and other experts with deep knowledge of nuclear technology and climate science, who often provide expert advice to governments and international agencies. They consult widely with their colleagues across a range of disciplines and also seek the views of the Bulletin’s Board of Sponsors, which includes 10 Nobel laureates.
1991 was the best year for the Doomsday Clock, where the world sat a lovely 17 minutes to midnight.
Two words - Cold War.
The United States and Russia had begun making deep cuts to their nuclear arsenals.
US President George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev sign the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Known as START, the agreement greatly reduced the number of strategic nuclear weapons deployed by the two countries.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the metaphorical clock in 1947.
For decades to come, the clock’s hands move based upon whether events push humanity closer to or further from nuclear apocalypse.
The clock later included dangers posed by climate change and other existential threats.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists president and CEO, Rachel Bronson, says that we're at the point of no return if the clock finally hits midnight.
She says we won't actually know when we've hit it, and that hitting it would mean nothing, given that the clock is meant to be a pre-emptive device to halt catastrophe before it arrives.
Bronson said: "When the clock is at midnight, that means there's been some sort of nuclear exchange or catastrophic climate change that's wiped out humanity.
"We never really want to get there and we won't know it when we do."
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will update the Doomsday Clock at 10am EST.
Here in the UK, that's 3pm.
Among the 2024 speakers is New York Times bestselling author and engineer, Bill Nye.
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