'Doomsday Clock' Kept at 90 Seconds to Midnight
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock, which was created in 1947 to metaphorically show how close humanity is to global destruction, has been kept at 90 seconds to midnight, the same as it was last year.
Facts
- The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock, which was created in 1947 to metaphorically show how close humanity is to global destruction, has been kept at 90 seconds to midnight, the same as it was last year. The clock was at 100 seconds to midnight from 2020–2022 before it dropped in 2023.1
- Every year, the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board sets the clock based on global threats such as nuclear war, biological threats, artificial intelligence (AI), and climate change. Before 2017, the board, which includes 10 Nobel laureates, only told the time in whole minutes, and in 2020, it began using seconds for the first time.2
- The clock remains unchanged from last year as the Bulletin said 2024 still faces the same threats, including the US, China, and Russia spending more money to ‘expand or modernize their nuclear arsenals,’ the Ukraine war risking ‘nuclear escalation,’ a lack of action on climate change, and the misuse of bio and AI technologies. 3
- The Bulletin’s President and CEO Rachel Bronson also cited the Israel-Hamas war, arguing that it’s of ‘particular worry’ because it could ‘escalate more broadly in the region, creating a larger conventional war and drawing in more nuclear powers or near-nuclear powers.’4
- According to the Bulletin, the clock isn’t supposed to measure threats but rather encourage public conversation and engagement regarding the topics it cites. The clock was the furthest from midnight in 1991 when it was ticked back to 17 minutes following the US-Soviet Union Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty; in 2016, it was pushed back to three minutes following the Iran nuclear agreement. 1
Sources: 1CNN, 2The Guardian, 3BBC News and 4Al Jazeera.
Narratives
- Left narrative, as provided by Global News. As noted by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the fact that the ticker hasn’t been moved closer to midnight doesn’t mean the world is getting better. After war broke out in Eastern Europe in 2022, war has now broken out in the Middle East; and after society dragged its feet on climate policy for years, governments are still not acting fast enough to save the planet. As new technologies and global threats continue to emerge, complacency is the enemy.
- Right narrative, as provided by Investor’s Business Daily. The Doomsday Clock is a silly, pseudoscientific scam at best, and a politically biased agenda pusher at worst — likely the latter. Over the decades, the clock has been pushed closer to midnight under Republican US administrations and further away during Democratic ones. What the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists really measures is how anxious liberals are depending on who’s living in the White House.
