How long do we have left before the end of the world? That is what the very serious doomsday clock should be telling us this Tuesday. Since 1947, members of the NGO Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a group of American atomic scientists, issue an account taking into account the nuclear, technological and climatic threats that weigh on the planet. The closer the hour gets to midnight, the closer the end of the world is.
The Bulletin has reset the clock’s minute hand 24 times since its debut, most recently in 2020. A year that also symbolizes when the hands of this Chicago-based clock moved closer to midnight, i.e., the symbolic hour. Dolphin. of the world – in precisely one minute and 40 seconds.
The time shown is of course symbolic. “It is a metaphor, a reminder of the dangers we have to face if we want to survive on the planet,” its members explain.
But the reasoning behind the concept is based on very real data, between the expansion of atomic weapons in the world, the renewed international tensions and the multiplication of climatic disasters.
The specter of war in Ukraine
Specifically, the Bulletin’s Science and Safety Council meets twice a year to “discuss world events and reset the clock if necessary.” It is made up of scientists and experts who “consult their colleagues in a wide range of disciplines and also seek the advice of the Bulletin’s sponsoring committee, which includes 13 Nobel laureates.”
With the war in the Ukraine, a conflict at the gates of Europe that reignites the nightmares of a new world war, the clock may well be moving dangerously close to midnight. Other international tensions could also guide the choice of scientists towards the announcement of an imminent end of the world. In 2022, North Korea marked a true turning point in ballistic missile control with a record number of shots, raising fears of a nuclear test.
The first time the clock was reset was in 1949, when the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb. And the hands were placed further from midnight in 1991, with the end of the Cold War, when “the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty,” the scientists recall.
Other news, this time climatic, could also weigh in the balance. On March 18, Antarctica registered a peak of -11°C, a difference of 40 degrees with respect to the seasonal norms in this area. As of April, temperatures hovered around 50°C in India and Pakistan. Finally, in France, 2022 will have been the hottest year ever recorded in the country since records began.
Source: BFM TV
