Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock 2 minutes closer to midnight

WE ARE ONLY 3 MINUTES FROM MIDNIGHT, PEOPLE

Published January 22, 2015 5:30PM (EST)

   (<a href='http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-507955p1.html'>Igor Zh.</a> via <a href='http://www.shutterstock.com/'>Shutterstock</a>)
(Igor Zh. via Shutterstock)

Thursday morning, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the hand on the Doomsday Clock 2 minutes later, setting the time to only 3 minutes before midnight. The clock, which symbolically represents Earth's proximity to disaster, now indicates that the "probability of global catastrophe is very high."

Agence France-Presse reports:

The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947. It has changed 18 times since then, ranging from two minutes to midnight in 1953 to 17 minutes before midnight in 1991.

It has been at five minutes to midnight since 20112 and the last time it was three minutes to midnight was in 1983, when the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was at its iciest.

"In 2015, unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity," said Kennette Benedict, executive director of the Bulletin in a statement. "World leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth."

So I guess now is as good a time as any to bump this post...


By Joanna Rothkopf

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