Always looking for uplifting stories, I’ve found another one that does nothing in achieving that goal.
Kennette Benedict, the executive director of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the organization behind the Doomsday Clock, announced on Thursday that the clock was advanced 2 minutes toward midnight, the end of humanity.
The clock now rests at three minutes to midnight, before apocalypse descends upon the planet.
“World leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe,” said Benedict. “Accelerating climate change coupled with inadequate international action to greenhouse gas emission and the stalled reduction of nuclear warheads in Russian and US arsenals” were also cited.
“Today, unchecked climate change and a nuclear arms race resulting from modernization of huge arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity,” said Benedict, when giving the news at an international conference in Washington.
Founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had helped to develop the first atomic weapons and discussed the time remaining in minutes, the Bulletin created the Clock two years later. It was then seven minutes to midnight.
According to the Doomsday Clock, the closest the humanity has ever been to its end was in 1953 with its first test of the hydrogen bomb, when the minute hand pointed at two minutes to midnight. The most optimistic year for the planet was in 1991, as a result of the end of the Cold War, the world was 17 minutes away from apocalypse.
Since then, the clock has been ticking towards the end. Is anyone surprised?
Disclaimer: On January 4, 2016, the owner of WestEastonPA.com began serving on the West Easton Council following an election. Postings and all content found on this website are the opinions of Matthew A. Dees and may not necessarily represent the opinion of the governing body for The Borough of West Easton.
