The “Doomsday Clock” was moved ahead. The end of life on Earth is getting closer. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reported that because of global warming and the so advanced and developed nuclear industry, human kind is much closer to its end than to its beginning.
On Thursday, “The Doomsday Clock” has been set two minutes ahead. The metaphoric clock has been designed 70 years ago as a reminder and alert to how close humanity comes to its end. The advocacy group which has founded the clock claims that Earth is three minutes from a catastrophic disaster. The previous clock settings were five minutes till doomsday.
The scientists who are a part of the board take into consideration the main threats to human kind. Each year they meet and decide whether it is necessary to reset the clock. The twenty members assess the information and act according to it. For example, the clock has been closer to midnight in 1953 when the hydrogen bomb began testing its products. The clock was set two minutes to midnight.
A conference in Washington has been held regarding this event. Kennette Benedict, the bulletin executive director affirmed that the event was to warn about the actual end of human kind. When the clock will reach midnight, the end of human kind will come. It has been the first time the clock was moved in the past three decades.
Because of latest weaponry development in nuclear fields and rapid climate change, Benedict stated that these are unbeatable threats to human kind. Taking these two major factors into consideration, the scientists who are part of the board took the decision to move it closer to midnight.
The “Doomsday Clock” has been set to a new hour. This action has several consequences. The most important and worth mentioning one is reducing the risk to catastrophic disasters. Therefore, actions will be needed to be taken soon. This decision comes a bit late, some say.
On the other hand, other people opinionate that human kind will find solutions to get through climate changes as well as nuclear weaponry. These scientists are not so pessimistic about the future of humans. Princeton University’s representant, Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of both geosciences and international affairs says that: “humans will ‘muddle through” these catastrophic factors. The climatic changes have been included in the bulletin for 8 years and people have managed to still live.
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