The Doomsday Clock Is Now Just 2 Minutes To ‘midnight,’ The Symbolic Hour Of The Apocalypse

Members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists explain why they advanced the symbolic Doomsday Clock a notch closer to the end of humanity on Jan. 25. (The Washington Post)

Alexa, what time is the apocalypse?

Ulp.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the symbolic Doomsday Clock a notch closer to the end of humanity Thursday, moving it ahead by 30 seconds after what the organization called a “grim assessment” of the state of geopolitical affairs.

“As of today,” Bulletin president Rachel Bronson told reporters, “it is two minutes to midnight” — as close as the world has ever been to the hour of apocalypse.

In moving the clock forward, the group cited “the failure of President Trump and other world leaders to deal with looming threats of nuclear war and climate change.”

Meanwhile, Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have engaged in a my-nuclear-button-is-bigger-than-yours war of words.

The decision to move the clock forward was motivated largely by the Bulletin's sense of looming nuclear peril. But the danger is compounded by humanity's continued inaction on climate change, they said, as well as vaguer concerns about unchecked artificial intelligence, the spread of disinformation, and the public's eroding trust in institutions that could keep these threats at bay.

The clock, a metaphorical measure of humankind's proximity to global catastrophe, also advanced 30 seconds last year, to 2½ minutes to “midnight.”



The clock is symbolic, sitting at the intersection of art and science, and it has wavered between two and 17 minutes until doom since its inception in 1947.

“People of the world: If governments are not acting to protect you as they should, you need to take the lead,” Krauss said. “It is not yet midnight, and we have moved back from the brink in the past. Whether we do so in the future may be in your hands.”