Shrugging Toward Doomsday

“As of today,” said Rachel Bronson, the president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “it is two minutes to midnight.”

On Thursday, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock—a symbolic assessment of how close the world stands to total destruction—as close to midnight as it has ever been, reflecting the expert group’s “grim assessment” that the world is now “as dangerous as it has been since World War II.”

It is among the most dire warnings ever issued by the Bulletin, whose board of sponsors includes 15 Nobel laureates. Not since 1953, when the United States and Soviet Union both began hydrogen-weapons testing, has the clock been moved so close to the final hour.

Speaking to reporters, experts from the group said that while the Doomsday Clock is based on the risk of many existential threats—like world war, climate change, major epidemics, or new technologies—there was one that outweighed all others this year.

“Unlike in the