Humanity has never been closer to the risk of annihilation as atomic scientists re-set the ‘Doomsday Clock’ to just 90 seconds to midnight today.
Humanity has never been closer to the risk of annihilation as atomic scientists re-set the ‘Doomsday Clock’ to just 90 seconds to midnight today.
The clock, created by the US-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to illustrate how close humanity has come to the end of the world, moved its “time” to 90 seconds to midnight.
This is 10 seconds closer than it has been for the past three years, as threats of nuclear war, climate change and disease have been exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Midnight on the clock signals the end of the world or Armageddon and scientists fear that the threat of annihilation is growing as the war in Ukraine enters its second year next month.
The clock was created in 1947 by a group of atomic scientists, including Albert Einstein, who had worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the world’s first nuclear weapons during World War II.
It began ticking at seven minutes to midnight then but was rolled back to 17 minutes to midnight – the furthest to ‘Doomsday yet’ in 1991 following the official end of the Cold War with the collapse of the Soviet Union and treaties signed by the US and Soviet Union to reduce their nuclear weapons arsenals.
