Doomsday Clock reset to 100 seconds to midnight

The Doomsday Clock has been moved to 100 seconds to midnight, the closest to destructive than at any point since the clock was created in 1947.

It was set at 2 minutes to midnight last year and the year before, but this is the first time the clock has be counted in seconds rather than minutes. The closer to midnight, the more dangerous circumstances, according to the organization that keeps the clock.

The dual threats of nuclear war and climate change, along with information warfare, have placed the world in its most precarious situation, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced in a release on Thursday.

“Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers — nuclear war and climate change — that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond,” the organization stated.

They also took aim at world leaders who they say have damaged world stability.

“The international security situation is dire, not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode.”

In order to downgrade the world threat, the group called on world powers to restrain their nuclear arms race; rededicate themselves to the temperature goal of the Paris climate agreement; slow nuclear proliferation in the Middle East; and stop misinformation campaigns that undermine science and media.

“It is 100 seconds to midnight. We are now expressing how close the world is to catastrophe in seconds – not hours, or even minutes. It is the closest to Doomsday we have ever been in the history of the Doomsday Clock” said Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the group.

The farthest the clock has been from midnight was in 1991, with the end of the Cold War, when it was 17 minutes to midnight.