The Doomsday Clock, which symbolically measures the end of time, marked this Tuesday that
humanity was never or so close to a planetary cataclysm
due to the war in Ukraine, nuclear tensions and the climate crisis.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which describes the clock as a "metaphor for humanity's closeness to self-annihilation,"
moved the 100-second hands to 90 seconds to midnight.
Each year, the Bulletin's science and safety board and its patrons, which include 11 Nobel laureates,
make the decision to reposition the hands of this symbolic clock.
The Clock of the Apocalypse or Doomsday Clock stayed at 100 seconds from midnight in 2022, the same time since 2020. It has now changed to 90 seconds.
Photo: AFP
Until now, the closest it has come to midnight, the fateful hour they hope will never come, has been 100 seconds.
She was two years since January 2020.
But things got worse.
In a statement, the Bulletin states that this year the needles are moving forward "due in large part, but not exclusively, to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the increased risk of nuclear escalation."
Scientists have decided to advance it by 10 seconds, mainly due to the war in Ukraine.
Photo: AFP
Also weighing "the continued threats posed by the climate crisis and the collapse of global norms and institutions necessary to mitigate the risks associated with advancing technologies and biological threats such as covid-19," he added.
At its inception, in 1947, after World War II,
it was seven minutes to midnight
.
The clock reached 17 minutes to doomsday after the end of the Cold War in 1991.
The "Doomsday Clock" moved again: closer and closer to midnight.
Photo: AFP
The Bulletin was founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and other scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project that produced the first nuclear weapons.