In an annual update announced Tuesday morning, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the symbolic Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight.
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Why it matters: The setting moves the clock’s hands closer to midnight than it has ever been before.
The clock is a figurative tracker of the world’s proximity to total human-caused destruction. The clock’s hands are moved closer to midnight to suggest humanity is nearer to self-made catastrophe, and farther when that risk appears to fade.
The big picture: Since its inception in 1947, the Doomsday Clock was initially used to represent the danger posed by nuclear weapons. It has since evolved to take into account the risks posed by climate change, bioweapons, and disinformation.
The move forward closer to midnight was due “largely, though not exclusively, because of the mounting dangers in the war in Ukraine,” Rachel Bronson, current president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said at the press conference Tuesday.
Since 2020, the clock had remained at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest it had ever been until this year’s new setting.
The past year has been marked by heightened fears of nuclear war stemming from Russia’s war in Ukraine as well as extreme weather events.
