Doomsday Clock: Humanity stays closer to apocalypse than ever before

‘When the Clock stands at 100 seconds to midnight, we are all threatened. The moment is both perilous and unsustainable, and the time to act is now’, the experts said

The Doomsday Clock, the metaphorical representation of how close the world is to annihilation, has remained the same: 100 seconds to midnight.

The announcement was made by science video blogger Hank Green, as well as Dr Rachel Bronson, the president and chief executive for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists which manages the clock.

Other board members from the group were also present, representing biodefence, cyber security, physics, and more, with the announcement conducted over Zoom.

“Steady is not good news,” professor Sharon Squassoni from the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy warns. “We are stuck in a perilous moment, one that brings neither stability nor security.”

The members of the group said that the US election last year “provided hope that what seemed like a global race toward catastrophe might be halted”, and that a “more moderate and predictable approach to leadership and the control of one of the two largest nuclear arsenals of the world marked a welcome change from the previous four years.”

Dr. Scott D. Sagan pointed out some beneficial statements that world leaders had made to avoid nuclear war - including American president Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladamir Putin saying that a nuclear war should never be fought.

However, it also pointed out that many countries have been developing weapons of war in the Middle East, and signs of nuclear arms races are clear in China. Both China and Russia also appear to be testing anti-satellite weapons, something that experts have warned should never be used. This is because of the threat a debris cloud caused by warfare could bring - and may keep humanity trapped on Earth forever.

In a statement, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists also highlighted that the worldwide response to the pandemic has been “entirely insufficient” with poorer countries left unvaccinated and plans for global vaccination collapsing. At date, five million people have been confirmed to have died of Covid-19.

Related to that issue is the “corruption of the information ecosystem” with misinformation and disinformation “infect[ing] America” over the last year, which the experts say is a threat to American democracy.

While the COP26 meeting in Glasgow last year “marked an important milestone in climate multilateralism”, the experts say that there was only “partial progress” towards the removal of greenhouse gas emissions and a failure to follow through on treaties to provide financial and technological support.

“Overall, countries’ projections and plans for fossil fuel production are far from adequate to achieve the global Paris goals”, they said.

Practically, the experts suggest that Russia and the United States should adhere to limits on nuclear weapons, accelerate decarbonisation alongside China, reduce biological risks of all kind through improved production of medical supplies, and the world’s wealthier countries should assist poorer countries to fight climate change.

“When the Clock stands at 100 seconds to midnight, we are all threatened. The moment is both perilous and unsustainable, and the time to act is now.”

The clock was first established in 1947 to symbolize how close we are to ‘midnight’ – an apocalypse that could threaten all life on Earth. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists organisation was founded by members of the Manhattan Project, who built the world’s first atomic bombs and “could not remain aloof to the consequences of their work”.

While it was created in response to the prospect of nuclear war it has now come to account for every challenge humanity must face.

Its hands can move forwards and backwards depending on human development; in 1991, at the end of the Cold War, it was set at 17 minutes, where it stayed until 1995. Since 1947, the clock has been moved backward eight times and forward 16 times.

The last update came at the beginning of 2021, when scientists kept the clock at the 100-seconds-to-midnight time that had been set in 2020.

They noted the increased threats of nuclear war, as well as the challenges of Covid-19, climate change, online misinformation, and artificial intelligence.