SCIENTISTS are expected to move humanity’s Doomsday Clock closer to midnight this week amid concerns about US president Donald Trump’s statements about nuclear weapons and environmental disasters caused by climate change.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists – a group which includes 15 Nobel laureates – will make an announcement on Thursday about the metaphorical timepiece which has been used since 1947 to demonstrate how close human life is to being wiped out.
The clock currently sits at two-and-a-half minutes to midnight, but it is likely it will be brought forward to the most precarious position since 1953, when it was set at two minutes to midnight after the Americans and Soviets tested H-bombs.
When it was set at two-and-a-half minutes to midnight last year, a statement from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists blamed nuclear weapons, climate change, fake news and the “cavalier and often reckless” behaviour of then US President-elect Donald Trump.
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