IT IS 5 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
2007 — The world stands at the brink of a second nuclear age. The United States and Russia remain ready to stage a nuclear attack within minutes, North Korea conducts a nuclear test, and many in the international community worry that Iran plans to acquire the Bomb. Climate change also presents a dire challenge to humanity. Damage to ecosystems is already taking place; flooding, destructive storms, increased drought, and polar ice melt are causing loss of life and property.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists keep what they call the doomsday clock running on their website. They determine how close they think the world is to ending in a nuclear war, thus how close we are to midnight. As you can see from the above, they have us at five minutes to midnight right now.
It's not the closest we've been to midnight. That would have been in 1959 when we were 2 minutes to midnight. The farthest we've been was in 1991 when we were 17 minutes from midnight.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather be 17 minutes or even 30 minutes from midnight. Five minutes is a little too close for comfort as far as I'm concerned.
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