The State Of The World: Doomsday Clock Set Closer To The End

With increasing signs that global warming is is kicking in plus the growing terrorist threat — and “nukes” falling in hands of terrorist groups and finger-itchy “rougue” nations — the outlook for humanity is a bit more bleak. How much? This much:

The Nobel laureate scientist Stephen Hawking today warned that the world is on the brink of a second nuclear age and a period of unprecedented climate change.

The University of Cambridge mathematician’s comments came as the time on the doomsday clock, which counts down to nuclear Armageddon, was moved two minutes closer to midnight, reflecting concerns among scientists over the rise of new nuclear powers.

Climate change was also increasing the threat of catastrophic damage to the planet, academics at the Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists (BAS) said.

The AP:

“As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth,” said Stephen Hawking, the renowned cosmologist and mathematician.

“As citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day, and to the perils we foresee if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change.”

The bulletin’s clock, which for 60 years has followed the rise and fall of nuclear tensions, would now also measure climate change, the bulletin’s editor Mark Strauss told The Associated Press.

“There’s a realization that we are changing our climate for the worse,” he said, “That would have catastrophic effects. Although the threat is not as dire as that of nuclear weapons right now, in the long term we are looking at a serious threat.”

The threat of nuclear war, however, remains by far the organization’s most pressing concern. “It’s important to emphasize 50 of today’s nuclear weapons could kill 200 million people,” he said.

The clock has been moved d some 18 times since 1947. The closest it came to The End Of The World was in 1953, two minutes to The Time, after the U.S. conducted a successful hydrogen bomb test.

Reports don’t say whether they moved the clock up for bigger bombs over the years such as the New Coke, Pauly Shore movies or Michael Richards doing a politically incorrect (and inferior) channeling of the late Bill Hicks at comedy clubs.

The furthest the clock has been away from humanity’s wipeout has been 17 minutes, when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Will this do any good? Like most alarm clocks, people will most likely ignore it and wake slightly too late — a bit past after the alarm goes off.