'Doomsday Clock' Moves 30 Seconds Closer to Midnight

The Doomsday Clock has been moved 30 seconds closer to midnight after the Bulletin of the Atomic [...]

The Doomsday Clock has been moved 30 seconds closer to midnight after the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said the world has become "more dangerous."

The clock, created by the BAS in 1947, is a metaphor for how close the mankind is to destroying the Earth. The clock now stands two minutes to midnight.

It is now the closest to the apocalypse it has been since 1953, the year when the U.S. and the Soviet Union tested hydrogen bombs.

"In fact, the Doomsday Clock is as close to midnight today as it was in 1953, when Cold War fears perhaps reached their highest levels," bulletin officials Lawrence M. Krauss and Robert Rosner wrote in an op-ed published Thursday by The Washington Post.

Krauss, a theoretical physicist, and Rosner, an astrophysicist, added, "To call the world nuclear situation dire is to understate the danger — and its immediacy. North Korea's nuclear weapons program appeared to make remarkable progress in 2017, increasing risks for itself, other countries in the region and the United States."

The op-ed also cited rising tensions in the South China Sea, Pakistan and India's ever-growing arsenals of nuclear weapons, and uncertainty about continued U.S. support for the Iranian nuclear deal in the Middle East.

Last year, the clock was also moved ahead by 30 seconds.

The BAS said the decision "wasn't easy" and that it was not based on a single factor. It also cited a "grim assessment" of the state of geopolitical affairs.

BAS President and CEO Rachel Bronson said that "in this year's discussions, nuclear issues took center stage once again."

"I think it would be very hard for the clock not​ to move forward," said Alex Wellerstein, who specializes in the history of nuclear weapons at the Stevens Institute of Technology. "We have members of Congress, White House advisers, and even the president implying that they think war with a nuclear state is not only likely, but potentially desirable. That's unusual and disturbing.

"The question I have is: How much forward can they go?"

When the symbolic clock was created in 1947, the clock's hand stood at seven minutes to midnight. Since then it has changed more than 20 times, ranging from two minutes to midnight to 17 minutes before midnight in 1991.

A board of scientists and nuclear experts meets regularly to determine what time it is on the Doomsday Clock. This group, called the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, was founded by veterans of the Manhattan Project concerned about the consequences of their nuclear research and today its board includes 15 Nobel Laureates.

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