If the history of humanity lasted 24 hours, the clock would mark, at this moment, only one hundred seconds to “midnight” , understood as the catastrophic destruction of the human species. This is the Doomsday Clock, a symbolic marker created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to represent the analogy of our extinction.
Now, the Bulletin has just published an update of the countdown to the find of the world: only one hundred seconds. This is the time, according to this panel of experts, that we are closest to disappearing: the minute hand of the clock moved forward in January 2018 to two minutes to midnight, the closest it had been to the end of humanity, until now . In 1953, in the context of the Cold War, the clock was counting two minutes and thirty seconds to our end.
The decision to put the countdown to our extinction at just 100 seconds is historic , and the members of the Bulletin have sent a message to the leaders of the planet through a statement, where they argue the reasons why we are on the brink of death. destruction.
Nuclear war and climate change are the main threats
“Science and technology can bring enormous benefits, but without constant vigilance, they also carry enormous risks,” they argue. Experts are referring here to the risks posed by certain technologies , such as nuclear weapons; but also of “the growing threat of information warfare and other disruptive technologies.” Artificial intelligence, space weapons or genetic engineering portend “a dangerous and multifaceted global instability.”
On the other hand, experts argue that humanity and its leaders have not exercised a “strong enough response to the growing climate threat .” Despite continued warnings from the scientific community, greenhouse gas emissions increased again over the past year, bringing annual emissions and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations to record levels.
As a consequence of this, “the lives of people around the world have suffered tragic consequences ,” they explain.
The hour of humanity: 23:58:30
It is not the first time that the Apocalypse Clock has changed; this is the 26th time it happens . Successive changes have turned the clock forward or backward depending on potentially dangerous events for humanity, and it has never been so far ahead as now.
When the countdown to midnight began in 1947, the clock read 11:50 PM. Now, the hour of humanity marks 23:58:30.
Why advance the Apocalypse Clock in 2020 and not before?
Experts consider that the year 2020 makes an important mark on the calendar of humanity because it is time to review certain events that mark our progress as a civilization or, as they argue, “the lack of progress” towards a safer planet and sustainable.
For example, 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of the first time Earth Day was celebrated, in 1970; the 50th anniversary of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons; and the 75th anniversary of the testing and then the use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
For these scientists, humanity has not honored these commitments. And the consequences are about to end our species.
