Doomsday Clock Holds Steady at 5 Minutes to Midnight

Doomsday Clock Holds Steady at 5 Minutes to Midnight

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Last year the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its famous “Doomsday Clock” — which measures the likelihood of global catastrophe — one minute closer to midnight, citing a lack of progress on nuclear disarmament and measures to address climate change.

The Bulletin again saw a year of stasis, but opted to keep the clock at five minutes to midnight for 2013. We’re now closer to midnight than we were during many years at the height of the Cold War. (The clock got as close as two minutes to midnight in 1953 after the U.S. began development of the hydrogen bomb.) But as board member Lawrence Krauss explains, the difference in the last few years has been BAS’s decision to take issues like climate change into account in addition to nuclear weapons.