“We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality … it’s a decision our experts do not take lightly,” said Bronson, in a statement made during this year’s announcement. In a statement citing the pandemic, the Bulletin noted that “mishandling of this grave global health crisis is a ‘wake-up call’ that governments, institutions and a misled public remain unprepared to handle the even greater threats posed by nuclear war and climate change.”īut this year, the 76th anniversary of the clock, the Bulletin’s science and security board elected to move the hands 10 seconds closer to the brink than ever before: It is now 90 seconds to midnight. Since 2020, however, the Bulletin had kept the clock set at 100 seconds to midnight - as close as those metaphorical hands had ever come to striking 12. In 1991, the hands sat at 17 minutes to midnight, the furthest away ever, thanks to the end of the Cold War and the signing of the START treaty between the U.S. Over the years, though, the Bulletin has also moved the hands back several times, often in response to improved relations between super-powers, as evidenced by arms-reduction treaties. More recently, the Bulletin cited the COVID-19 pandemic as a new factor in determining the setting of the clock. In 2007, for example, climate change first played a role in the setting of the hands (at five minutes to midnight). Over time, other issues besides nuclear proliferation have helped inform the organization’s temporal deliberations. Some of this advocacy he did directly in the pages of the Bulletin ,” noted Bulletin president Rachel Bronson, in a recent statement. Oppenheimer also “advocated for an ethic that acknowledges both the social benefits and potential dangers of scientific advancement. Robert Oppenheimer, known as “the father of the atomic bomb,” was the first chairman of that board. Early leaders and contributors included some of the field’s most noteworthy names: Albert Einstein, for example, created the organization’s first board of sponsors. When the Doomsday Clock was first conceived in 1947, nuclear weapons were the technology of greatest concern to the Bulletin, whose founders included Manhattan Project alums. Every January, the Bulletin’s decision-makers convene to announce the clock’s new setting, if there is one (sometimes there isn’t). Created by the nonprofit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the idea behind the clock is to remind the general public, policymakers and other scientists “how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making,” and to advance discussions and ideas for reducing human-made threats to our own extinction, according to the organization’s mission.
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