What is the reason behind the current time of the Doomsday Clock?

Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers – nuclear war and climate change – that are compounded the cyber-enabled information warfare. These are the basis on which the current time has been set. The failure of world leaders to deal with increasingly likely threats of nuclear war between the U.S. and North Korea, the U.S. and Iran, and the continued failure to combat climate change have been cited as the factors for bringing the time ever closer to midnight.

Global leaders are not responding appropriately to reduce this threat level and counteract the hollowing-out of international political institutions, negotiations, and agreements that aim to contain it. The result is a heightened and growing risk of disaster.

To be sure, some of these negative trends have been long in development. That they could be seen coming miles in the distance but still were allowed to occur is not just disheartening but also a sign of fundamental dysfunction in the world’s efforts to manage and reduce existential risk.

 

Picture Credit : Google