The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has announced that the Doomsday Clock will remain unchanged at midnight or “Doomsday” for about 100 seconds since it created in 1947. This means that humanity is still closer to a possible catastrophe than ever before.
In 2020, the clock moves forward at just 100 seconds to midnight, centered on continued nuclear weapons, limited political response to climate change, and the spread of cyber-based chaos. While there has been some promising progress in these areas, such as declining demand for fossil fuels, the COVID-19 epidemic last year was a global catastrophe that exposed many weaknesses in the way we live on the planet. As such, the clock remains unchanged.
“The hands of the Doomsday Clock will remain close to midnight from about 100 seconds into the night as before,” Dr. Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin of Nuclear Scientists, said in a statement. “The -19 epidemic serves as a historic ‘wake-up call’, a clear example that national governments and international agencies are not prepared to deal with nuclear weapons and the real civilization-endangered threat of climate change.”
The Doomsday Clock is a metaphorical calculation for the possibility of a fabricated global catastrophe. Midnight represents the point where guesswork can happen. Near the clock of midnight, the closest humanity to a possible global catastrophe.
The project started in 1947 by the Atomic Scientists Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, who increasingly concerned about the proliferation of atomic bombs and the sharp geopolitical position between the United States and the USSR. Many scientists were once part of the Manhattan Project, the first atomic bomb development mission in the United States in the 1940s, but became increasingly aware of the monster they created.
At the start of the Cold War in 1947, the Doomsday Clock set to minutes from midnight, and it was mostly concerned with the quarrel between the nuclear-armed superpowers. As the Cold War tensions subsided, the watch’s hand moved closer to the midnight sign. The time set at 11:43 pm on was one of the longest clocks in 1991, when the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the collapse of the USSR and the first strategic signing of the Cold War ended the Arms Reduction Treaty.
Even then, the minute clock is slowly ticking towards midnight. In recent years, the Doomsday Clock movement has largely determined by three factors: the constant stockpiling of nuclear weapons, the lack of action on climate change, and the so-called “disruptive technology” that includes cyberwarfare to spread misinformation, and artificial intelligence.
It is easy to imagine that the idea of nuclear war in the twenty-first century is not a matter of concern, but the threat still hangs over the fate of our entire planet. Despite progress in reducing the nuclear arsenal of the Cold War, the number of nuclear weapons combinations in the world was about 13,410 warheads in early 2020, the same level seen in the 1950s. Up to 1,800 warheads made on a high-alert basis and ready for use in very short notice.
However, the “confusion” of the COVID-19 epidemic by governments, institutions and“confused public” shows that humanity remains unprepared to deal with the larger threat of both nuclear war and climate change, the bulletin said.
In a separate statement, the government accused the government of “disregarding responsibility” and ignoring scientific advice on the biggest public health crisis in the world, but acknowledged that the US presidential election, which supports international cooperation and science-based policies, is a positive step forward.
“Before Cavid-19 the idea of a catastrophic epidemic was sent to science fiction and historical references.”I think we all know now that it doesn’t happen,” Dr. Asha George, a member of the Bulletin of Nuclear Scientists of the Board of Science and Security, said in an online announcement, “it never happened.”
