Humanity faces greater existential threats than it did during the Cold War, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
The Doomsday Clock, created 76 years ago by atomic scientists to warn against a human-made apocalypse, has moved to 90 seconds to midnight.
For the past three years the clock has been stuck at 100 seconds to midnight, hovering at what was until now the closest-ever point to humanity's annihilation. Now,"largely, but not exclusively" due to growing risks in the war in Ukraine, it has ticked one step closer. "We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday clock time reflects that reality.
Founded in 1945 by physicists including Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer, who was known as the"father of the atomic bomb", the BAS's formation was inspired by that year's tragic dropping of the U.S. atomic bombs"Little Boy" and"Fat Man" on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To decide the clock's time each year, the BAS's Science and Security Board convenes two biannual meetings of 18 experts from backgrounds spanning diplomacy, nuclear science, climate change, disruptive technologies and military history to discuss the changing threats posed to humanity by itself.
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