The group of nuclear scientists Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists updated the Doomsday Clock this Tuesday (23) and maintained the mark of 90 seconds until midnight, the same as in 2023.
The clock assesses how close humanity is to destroying the world. The logic is simple: the closer the clock hands are to midnight, the closer the world would be to its end.
Last year, the group of scientists announced for the first time the marking of 90 seconds until the end of the world, the closest the Doomsday Clock has come to midnight since its creation in 1947.
For 2024, scientists maintained the forecast.
“The war in Ukraine and the widespread and growing dependence on nuclear weapons increase the risk of nuclear escalation. China, Russia and the United States are spending enormous sums to expand or modernize their nuclear arsenals, increasing the constant danger of nuclear war due to errors or miscalculations,” the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists justified the choice.
Climate change was also cited as a justification: “In 2023, the Earth experienced the hottest year on record, in addition to massive floods, forest fires and other climate-related catastrophes that affected millions of people around the world. At the same time, rapid and worrying developments in life sciences and other disruptive technologies have accelerated, while governments have made only feeble efforts to control them.”
“Last year, we expressed our greatest concern by setting the Clock to 90 seconds to midnight – the closest it has ever been to global catastrophe,” the statement said. “Today, we once again set the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight, as humanity continues to face an unprecedented level of danger.”
He added: “Our decision should not be taken as a sign that the international security situation has improved. Instead, leaders and citizens around the world should take this declaration as a stark warning and respond urgently, as if today were the most dangerous moment in modern history. Because it very well could be.”
What is the Doomsday Clock?
The clock is a good marketing idea to encourage discussion, but not an accurate measurement of how much time is left on the planet.
Despite the simple explanation, the position of the clock hands is determined by a series of complex mathematical calculations that measure the real probability of catastrophic events happening. These include nuclear wars, epidemic diseases and climate change.
When the count began in 1947, the clock was seven minutes from midnight. Amid nuclear tensions, the clock reached two minutes until the end of the world in 1953. With the end of the Cold War, it returned to 17 minutes.
But the breather was short-lived and he scored two minutes again at the beginning of this century, with the advance of climate change and nuclear threats from North Korea. In 2021 and 2022, the clock reached 100 seconds to midnight, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the risks of a new arms race.
In 2023, the clock marked 90 seconds to midnight, the shortest time ever recorded in history.
Why was the Doomsday Clock created?
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists was a group of atomic scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, the code name for the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
Originally, the clock was intended to measure nuclear threats, but in 2007 the Bulletin decided to include climate change in its calculations.
Over the past three-quarters of a century, the time on the clock has changed depending on how close scientists believe the human race is to total destruction. Some years the weather changes and others it doesn’t.
The Doomsday Clock is set each year by experts from the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 11 Nobel Prize winners.
While the clock was an effective wake-up call to remind people of the cascading crises facing the planet, some questioned the usefulness of the 75-year-old clock.
Lawrence Krauss, a former member of the Bulletin’s Board of Sponsors, said that although time has passed since the clock began ticking, it has been difficult to take the results seriously as the past few decades have come dangerously close to the end of civilization.
What happens if the clock hits midnight?
The clock never struck midnight, and Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin, hopes it never does.
“When the clock strikes midnight, it means that some kind of nuclear exchange or catastrophic climate change has occurred that has wiped out humanity,” he says. “So we don’t want to get there and we won’t know when we will.”
*With information from CNN International
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