Doomsday Clock set to 100 seconds to midnight for third straight year

The Doomsday Clock has been set to 100 seconds to midnight for the third year in a row, highlighting that humanity is teetering on the brink of global catastrophe.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which handles the clock, set it to 100 seconds to midnight on Thursday, where the clock has remained since 2020.

Announcing the decision to keep the clock hands unmoved, the President and CEO of the Bulletin, Dr Rachel Bronson, said, “Is humanity safer or at greater risk this year than compared last year? Is humanity safer or at greater risk this year compared to the 75 years we’ve been asking the question?”

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For those unaware, the Doomsday Clock is a symbolic time-piece that depicts how close humanity is to a catastrophe of global proportions, with midnight marking the onset of a global catastrophe. The clock “represents the judgement of leading science and security experts of the threat to human existence, with a focus on manmade threats, nuclear risks, climate change, and new disruptive technologies.”

The Doomsday Clock was established by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in 1947 as a symbolic indicator of the risks to human existence. The clock, back then, had been set to seven minutes to midnight.

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In 1953, after hydrogen bomb tests by the US and the USSR, the clock was moved to two minutes to midnight in view of the threat of nuclear war.

The furthest the clock has been from midnight was in 1991, when it was set to 17 minutes to midnight.

However, the clock was set to 100 seconds to midnight in view of several risks, including climate change and COVID-19, and this is the closest the clock has ever been to midnight.