Doomsday watches a second closer to disaster

The world is closer than ever on the apocalypse.

It was the serious assessment issued Tuesday by nuclear scientists, a non -profit organization and publication whose signature Doomsday Clock has estimated – in the sharp conditions of “minutes to midnight” – how close humanity is for annihilation since 1947.

The organization said it had moved the clock’s hands closer to the dreaded day – from 90 seconds to midnight to 89 seconds to midnight. It cited the threats that make up nuclear weapons, climate change and the potential abuse of biological science and artificial intelligence – existential dangers, as it said had been exacerbated by the spread of wrong information, disinformation and conspiracy theories.

“When we put the clock a second closer to midnight, we send a sharp signal: Because the world is already dangerously close to the precipitate, a step in even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that anyone else Delay in turning course increases the likelihood of global disaster, ”Bulletin said in A statement.

The clock is set by the organization’s Science and security cardsIt consists of experts in nuclear technology, global security, climate science and other areas. The watch was established in 1947 when the organization’s concerns were about the prospect of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The time was then set at seven minutes to midnight.

Since then, the researchers behind the project have expanded their focus to consider other threats such as climate change, infectious disease and spread of incorrect information driven by artificial intelligence. And the hands of the clock have moved back and forth. The last shift was in January 2023 when the watch was changed from 100 seconds to midnight to 90 seconds to midnight, largely due to the war in Ukraine.

The watch was set at the far end of midnight in 1991, after the United States and the Soviet Union signed the strategic weapons reduction treaty designed to scale down their stores with long -long nuclear weapons. In response, Bulletin moved the clock to 17 minutes to midnight.

The clock did not change during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 because “too little was known at that time about the circumstances of standoff or what the result would be,” Bulletin said on his website.

Critics have rejected the clock as a stunt based on subjective assessments. Others have said that its repeated warnings of total annihilation could end up being dismissed by the public – the public policy equivalent of the boy who cried Wolf.

But the researchers who set the clock call it an internationally recognized symbol and “a reminder of the dangers we need to address if we are to survive on the planet.”

“The purpose of the Doomsday Clock is to start a global conversation about the very real existential threats that keep the world’s supreme scientists awake at night,” said Daniel Holz, chairman of the Science and Security Council and the basic director of the existential risk laboratory at the University of Chicago.

This year, Bulletin said global leaders did not fail to confront rising threats to human survival.

It said the war in Ukraine, now in the third year, “could become nuclear at any time due to a rash decision or through accident or wrong calculation.” It warned that global nuclear weapons controls “collapsed.”

And it said the effects of climate change had increased in the past year, which was almost certainly the hottest on the record. The growth of sun and wind energy said Bulletin, “has been impressive, but is still inadequate to stabilize the climate.”

In a clear allusion to President Trump, the organization said, “Judging from the recent election campaigns is considered climate change as a low priority in the US and many other countries.”

Mr. This month, Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the global covenant to fight climate change, as part of a series of actions to promote fossil fuels and to support renewable energy.

Bulletin also warned of the spread of bird flu and said that rapid progress in artificial intelligence had “increased the risk of terrorists or countries being able to reach the possibility of designing biological weapons for which counter -measures do not exist.”

Despite the gloomy prospects, Bulletin said there was still an opportunity for the world to move back from the brink of collapse if countries – especially the United States, China and Russia – are working closer to fighting climate change, illness and other threats .

“There is still time to make the right choices to turn their hands on the doomsday watch back,” said Juan Manuel Santos, former President of Colombia and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Tuesday at a news conference. “In Colombia we say, ‘Cada Segundo Cuenta.’ Every second counts. Let’s use each one wise. “