Trump, 'Fake News' And Climate Change Tick 'Doomsday Clock' Closer To Midnight
WASHINGTON D.C. (CBS13) – The "Doomsday Clock" is ticking closer to midnight.
Before you get too alarmed, it's only a symbolic countdown to the end of the world as visualized by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
However, on Thursday it was revealed that the Bulletin had moved the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight than any other time in the past 60 years.
The clock is now at two and half minutes to midnight. The only other time it was closer was back in 1953 at the height of the hydrogen bomb tests undertaken by the US and then-Soviet Union.
The Bulletin's leadership cited President Donald Trump's apparent disregard of facts as a main reason for the clock to tick closer to the apocalypse.
World leaders are also being faulted for not being able to come to grips with the continuous existential threats of nuclear weapons and climate change, according to the Bulletin.
"As we marked the 70th anniversary of the Doomsday Clock, this year's Clock deliberations felt more urgent than usual … as trusted sources of information came under attack, fake news was on the rise, and words were used by a President-elect of the United States in cavalier and often reckless ways to address the twin threats of nuclear weapons and climate change," said Rachel Bronson, executive director and publisher of the Bulletin during a press conference in Washington D.C. on Thursday.
The clock can and has been set back, like in 1991 when it went back to 17 minutes to midnight as the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union came to an end.
The Bulletin urges world leaders to act immediately to try and guide humanity away from the brink.
