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Doomsday Clock Moves Closer to Midnight |
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Written by Staff
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Wednesday, 17 January 2007 |
 The Doomsday Clock, created and maintained by the University of Chicago's Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) will be reset late Wednesday to more accurately reflect the possibility of global nuclear destruction. The symbolic clock's minute hand has been set at seven minutes to midnight since 2002. It will be moved forward to 5 minutes to midnight later today, 'midnight' representing impending destruction by nuclear war.
Initiated in 1947 during the Cold War, the clock began at seven minutes to midnight and since that time has been reset back and forth seventeen times depending on the possibility of a nuclear war.
Resetting the clock on January 17, 2007 will, according to the Bulletin, reflect the "most perilous period since Hiroshima and Nagasaki", as well as the "growing concerns about a 'Second Nuclear Age'". In a news release issued by the BAS, grave concerns were expressed including:
-nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea,
-unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere,
-the continuing "launch-ready" status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia,
-escalating terrorism,
-new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks
The closest time set on the Doomsday Clock occured in 1953 when it was changed to two minutes to midnight after the U.S. and the Soviet Union had performed tests on thermonuclear devices.
In 1981 the clock was set to it's longest distance of seventeen minutes to midnight after the U.S. and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. |
