The doomsday clock. The name alone rings alarm bells. The apocalyptic overtones are intentional. The clock is a symbol of how close our planet is to disasters due to nuclear threats, climate change and information warfare. Every year the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists decides whether to bring the clock closer to midnight (which is fate).
Last year, The bulletin gave the watch a pessimistic boostand moved it from two minutes to midnight to just 100 seconds to midnight. After a disastrous 2020, will they put it closer to midnight, withdraw it, or leave it the same?
The bulletin will broadcast its announcement for 2021 live on Wednesday at 7 a.m.
The nonprofit Bulletin of Atomic Scientists was founded in the 1940s by scientists who were alarmed by the development of nuclear weapons. "The clock has become a widely accepted indicator of global vulnerability to disasters from nuclear weapons, climate change and disruptive technologies in other areas," the organization said last year.
Speakers for the announcement include former California Governor Jerry Brown, former President of Liberia and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Hidehiko Yuzaki, Governor of Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan.
The clock has turned toward doom for the most part in the past decade, but it doesn't move in just one direction. When it was first revealed in 1947, it was set for seven minutes to midnight. In its most optimistic setting, the clock showed 17 minutes to midnight in 1991.
If nothing else, the doomsday clock will confirm something we already know: this planet and its people are facing many challenges.
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