Doomsday Clock Lurches 100 Seconds to Midnight

Read the full story at The Guardian

"The risk of civil collapse from nuclear weapons and the climate crisis is at a record high, according to US scientists and former officials, calling the current environment 'profoundly unstable'," write Emily Holden and Julian Borger of The Guardian reporting on the latest The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announcement. The organization's symbolic "Doomsday Clock" notes threats to humanity since its creation in 1947 when the cold war broke out.

“The world needs to wake up. Our planet faces two simultaneous existential threats,” said Mary Robinson, chair of an independent group of global leaders called The Elders, and the former president of Ireland and former UN high commissioner of human rights.

Robinson said that countries that don’t aim to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions heating the planet and instead exploit fossil fuels are issuing “a death sentence for humanity”.

She said while public pressure presents a “sliver of hope” for the climate, there is no such pressure on leaders to avert nuclear threats.

EAPS Professor Susan Solomon is a member of the board, which sets the the Doomsday Clock. Read the full report.

Story Image: Edmund G Brown, Mary Robinson and Ban Ki-moon attend a press conference in Washington DC with the Doomsday Clock which has moved closer to midnight than ever. (Credit: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists/PA)