Folks, it can be hard to take a look around at the world today and not see a bleakness.
For some, it’s the climate that scares them to death. Global warming and the famine that it brings with it weighs heavy on them, smothering and suffocating their grandest ideals.
For others, it’s the political uncertainty of the world. They see nothing but an ever-more acute bitterness between those with disparate ideologies, and, when combined with the geopolitical realities of terror and espionage, believe that the nukes will start flying any day.
As it turns out, the folks who keep track of just how close our civilization is to being wiped off the face of the earth tend to agree with this bleak assessment.
The Doomsday Clock has never been closer to striking midnight. The metaphorical measure of how close humanity is to extinction has been maintained by nonprofit group Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1947. This year, the group says they’re moving the clock closer to midnight than ever before — just 100 seconds away, down from two minutes.
“The iconic Doomsday Clock symbolizing the gravest perils facing humankind is now closer to midnight than at any point since its creation in 1947,” reads a press release from the group, whose board of sponsors includes 13 Nobel Laureates. “Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers — nuclear war and climate change — that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond.”
Bulletin also names the dire erosion of international security and political infrastructure as motives for their decision to give the human race just 100 seconds on the clock.
The clock was set to two minutes in both 2018 and 2019, but has been steadily ticking closer to doomsday since its inception.
