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Doomsday Clock at 90 Seconds to Midnight [1]

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Date: 2023-04-20  

The 2023 Doomsday Clock on January 24, 2023 in Washington, DC.

Since 1947, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has updated the Doomsday Clock, an estimate of how close humanity is to the end of civilization as we know it. The clock had been set at 100 seconds to midnight since 2020, but with the intensification of the war in Ukraine, the renewed threat of the use of nuclear weapons, the spread of disinformation online, the continuing COVID pandemic, the possibility of new outbreaks of disease, and the inability of countries to effectively and collectively respond to climate change, the scientists moved the clock ten seconds closer to disaster. This is the closest the Doomsday Clock has ever signaled a potential global catastrophe.

The decision to reset the clock followed an announcement in February by Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia was suspending its participation in the New START treaty with the United States that limits both countries strategic nuclear arsenals. The treaty is the last remaining arms control agreement between the United States and Russia.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and the Doomsday Clock were created after World War II in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and as the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union intensified. The scientists who started the Bulletin feared that the atom bomb would be “only the first of many dangerous presents from the Pandora’s Box of modern science.” Its founders included Albert Einstein.

Climate change may now be an even greater threat to humanity than nuclear war. If humanity continues to emit greenhouse gases by burning high levels of fossil fuel, by 2100 the Earth will be almost unrecognizable and large regions will uninhabitable. More than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans that cover 2/3 rds of the Earth’s surface. In 2022, ocean temperatures, a key indicator of global warming, were the hottest ever recorded and the rate of warming was increasing. Sea surface temperature has a major impact on the world’s weather. Hotter oceans supercharge extreme weather contributing to more intense storms and flooding. Warmer water also expands, raising sea levels and threatening coastal cities.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is especially concerned with the war in Ukraine precipitated by a Russian invasion. Russia, which previously declared it would "respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine," is now intent on annexing Ukrainian territory and toppling its elected government. As it suffered reversals on the battlefield, Russia has made thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons and the possibility that the conflict will spin out of control remains high.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/20/2164905/-Doomsday-Clock-at-90-Seconds-to-Midnight

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