The Atlantic

The Doomsday Clock’s Most Dire Warning Since the Cold War

“This is the closest to midnight the Doomsday Clock has ever been in the lifetime of almost everyone in this room.”
Source: AP

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced Thursday that the Doomsday Clock now stands at two-and-a-half minutes to midnight, suggesting that existential threats now pose a greater danger to humanity than they have at any time since the height of the Cold War.

The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic warning about how close the world stands to “midnight,” that is, nuclear or existential catastrophe. Since 1947, the Bulletin’s have updated it annually. Many of the world’s

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