'The fact that the Doomsday clock-setters changed their definition of 'doomsday' shows how profoundly the world has changed - they have to find a new source of doom because global thermonuclear war is now so unlikely,' Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker said. The bulletin has included climate change in its doomsday clock since 2007. Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of both geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University, said: 'I suspect that humans will 'muddle through' the climate situation much as we have muddled through the nuclear weapons situation - limiting the risk with cooperative international action and parallel domestic policies.' 'Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer than any preceding on record.'īut other scientists aren't quite so pessimistic. 'Human influence on the climate system is clear,' Richard Somerville of the Bulletin said at the conference Thursday. The scientists created the clock in 1947 using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero), to convey threats to humanity and the Earth.īefore today, the Doomsday Clock was most recently moved ahead from six to five minutes to midnight in 2012, also in a response to nuclear proliferation and climate change.

and Soviet Union.Īn interactive timeline of the clock's shifts can be found here on the BAS website.3-T0-DOOM: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Doomsday Clock. For example, in 1960, the clock was moved back to seven minutes to midnight, thanks in large part to new cooperation between the U.S. Over the years, the clock has been moved forward and backward to reflect changes and improvements in the world's ability to prevent nuclear proliferation and work to mitigate climate change. That year, the clock was set at two minutes to midnight. and the Soviet Union both tested hydrogen bombs. The closest the Doomdsay Clock got to midnight was in 1953, when the U.S. When the clock started running, it was set at seven minutes to midnight. Two years later, following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the BAS designed the Doomsday Clock to alert the public to the dangers of nuclear proliferation.

The BAS was created in 1945 by scientists who helped develop the atomic bomb during the Manhattan Project. 'We, the members of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, want to be clear about our decision not to move the hands of the Doomsday Clock in 2016: That decision is not good news, but an expression of dismay that world leaders continue to fail to focus their efforts and the world's attention on reducing the extreme danger posed by nuclear weapons and climate change.' Far too close,' the organization said in a statement. last year - will remain at the closest it's been to midnight since 1984, when the Cold War was at its iciest. and Russia, conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, North Korea's recent nuclear test, as well as nuclear modernization by a number of countries, including the U.S., has offset the positive work achieved in the past year.Īs a result, the clock - which was moved up two minutes to 11:57 p.m. Managed by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the clock symbolizes how close humanity is to destroying itself, with midnight representing global apocalyptic disaster.ĭespite the progress represented by the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate summit, the BAS says rising tensions between the U.S. The Doomsday Clock remains unchanged this year, at three minutes to midnight.

Doomsday 3 minutes to midnight