The Doomsday Clock is just ticked half a minute closer to midnight.

In one of the scientific community’s most bizarre rituals, members of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists—a group of scientists and security experts that try to assess how close we are to total annihilation—stood on a stage before the National Press Club in Washington DC this morning. A large, black sheet draped object loomed center stage as members of the Bulletin shuffled in on the morning of January 25, 2018 to deliver bad news: humanity is fucked.

“We’ve come to a grim assessment,” Rachel Bronson—CEO of The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists—told the waiting crowd. Two other members of the Bulletin got up from their seats and dramatically flanked the sheet-draped object. “It is with considerable concern that we set the time of the Doomsday Clock...as of today, it is two minutes to midnight.”

The scientists pulled down the black sheet to reveal a comically large, half-face clock. One of them inched the minute hand half a minute closer to midnight, completing the ritual metaphor designed to let the world know that everything is terrible and we’re probably going to die. According to the Bulletin, you can blame Trump for this. Mostly.

The reasons for the advancing of the Doomsday Clock are several, but mostly point back to America’s commander-in-chief. The Bulletin pointed to Trump’s incendiary rhetoric, his bickering with Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, the instability of the Iran Deal, and Washington’s lack of action regarding climate change as the main sources of the growing threat of total extinction of the human race.

Last year, the scientists took the unprecedented step of setting the clock half a minute closer—from three minutes to two minutes, thirty seconds—citing the election of Donald Trump, the global rise of nationalism, and the world’s sluggish response to climate change as the main reasons.

“You have to remember that Mr. Trump had not yet become president,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board Co-Chair Robert Rosner told me last August after Trump made his fire and fury comments about North Korea. “We were loathe to pre-judge the man. We thought it was unwise. Now we know more." Rosner was the scientist who pulled the sheet off the clock this morning and moved the second hand closer to midnight.

Two minutes to midnight is the closest to doomsday to the scientists have ever set the clock. It’s only been there once before—in 1953 when the US had decided to pursue the hydrogen bomb and was testing nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean. In 1991, as the US and USSR were making deep cuts to its nuclear arsenals, the scientists set the clock at 17 minutes to midnight.

“We hope this resetting of the Clock will be interpreted exactly as it is meant—as an urgent warning of global danger,” he said in a prepared statement released as part of the ceremony. “The time for world leaders to address looming nuclear danger and the continuing march of climate change is long past. The time for the citizens of the world to demand such action is now.”

The Bulletin is a group of experts and scientists. These people know their fields and understand both the science of disaster and the dangerous geopolitics of the current moment. However, it’s important to note that this is a warning, not a prediction. They are people coming to a subjective consensus conclusion based on the available evidence as they see it. The Doomsday Clock ceremony is a subjective—and deeply weird—yearly event. I’m glad they do it, but it’s important take their warnings with a grain of salt.</s>The world is two minutes from total annihilation, scientists warned Thursday as they moved the ominous “Doomsday Clock” ahead to its most dangerous point since the 1950s.

Explaining its decision, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said the world’s failure to act on climate change, President Trump’s rhetoric about nuclear weapons, the North Korean threat, and U.S.-Russia tensions are to blame.

“In 2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change, making the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year ago — and as dangerous as it has been since World War II,” the scientists said in a statement.

The organization cited a host of foreign policy issues in making the change, the first adjustment since January 2017 when scientists bumped the clock up to two minutes and 30 seconds to midnight. The scientists specifically said uncertainty about the Iran nuclear deal, “escalating rhetoric” between Pakistan and India, tension in the South China Sea, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, and other international matters make the world an especially dangerous place.

Another key driver, they said, is the failure of global leaders to adequately address global warming.

“On the climate change front, the danger may seem less immediate, but avoiding catastrophic temperature increases in the long run requires urgent attention now,” the scientists said. “The nations of the world will have to significantly decrease their greenhouse gas emissions to keep climate risks manageable, and so far, the global response has fallen far short of meeting this challenge.”

Mr. Trump last summer withdrew the U.S. from a global climate change agreement, saying the deal harmed the American economy and let major polluters, such as China, off the hook. Critics argue that decision will have long-lasting ramifications in the fight against global warming.

The Doomsday Clock began in 1947 as a method of measuring how close the world is to complete and total collapse. It measures the likelihood of war and a host of other concerns.

Its first iteration put the clock at seven minutes to midnight. By 1953, amid concerns of nuclear war between the U.S. and Soviet Union, scientists said the world was just two minutes from destruction.

In 2010, the clock was set at six minutes to midnight, and has accelerated since then.

“It is now two minutes to midnight­­­ ­— the closest the Clock has ever been to Doomsday, and as close as it was in 1953, at the height of the Cold War,” said Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.</s>The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its “Doomsday Clock” 30 seconds closer midnight in reaction to impending threats of nuclear war and climate change.

It is now two minutes away from midnight.

“To call the situation dire is to understate the danger,” said Rachel Bronson, the head of the Bulletin, in an announcement Thursday.

The new setting reflects a perception that the world is more dangerous than it was a year ago, when President Trump took office.

The clock dates back to 1947, and has been set every year by the nonprofit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, to reflect the security of the planet based on nuclear threats, climate change and other global factors.

“The actions and policies of the nuclear-armed states are winding the Doomsday Clock toward midnight,” said Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

Recent events, including an accidental missile alert in Hawaii earlier this month, have heightened fears.

“We have been lucky to avoid conflict through intentional or accidental means, but recent posturing and the false alarms in Hawaii and Japan show our luck is about to run out if we don’t move quickly,” Fihn said.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists cites rising nuclear tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, including “hyperbolic rhetoric and provocative actions on both sides” as a reason for the clock’s advancement.

The group calls out “the decline of U.S. leadership and a related demise of diplomacy under the Trump administration” as reasons for the move closer to midnight.

This marks the first year since the height of the Cold War that the clock has been just two minutes away from “midnight.”

Its farthest distance from midnight was 17 minutes away in 1991 as the Soviet Union broke apart.

Here's the interface used during mistaken missile alarm

It moved forward half a minute in 2017 to reflect Trump’s nuclear rhetoric and positions on climate change.</s>CHICAGO: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Thursday moved the hands of the symbolic "Doomsday Clock" ahead to two minutes to midnight, the closest since the 1950s, amid increasing worries over nuclear weapons and climate change.

According to Rachel Bronson, the president of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "Because of the extraordinary danger of the current moment, The clock is now two minutes to midnight. The minute hand has been moved by 30 seconds ahead of a global catastrophe. This is the closest the Clock has ever been to Doomsday, and as close as it was in 1953, at the height of the Cold War.”

Scientists blamed a cocktail of threats, ranging from dangerous political rhetoric to the potential of a nuclear threat, as the catalysts for moving the clock closer toward doomsday, according to the CNN.

"North Korea's nuclear weapons program made remarkable progress in 2017, increasing risks to North Korea itself, other countries in the region, and the United States. Hyperbolic political rhetoric and provocative actions by both sides have increased the possibility of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation," Bronson added in a statement.

The decisions taken by the US President Donald Trump, such as withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord and the critical approach of the Iran nuclear deal, was considered as "harmful".

"In 2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change, making the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year ago — and as dangerous as it has been since World War II," Bronson maintained.

"On the climate change front, the danger may seem less immediate, but avoiding catastrophic temperature increases, in the long run, require urgent attention now. The nations of the world will have to significantly decrease their greenhouse gas emissions to keep climate risks manageable, and so far, the global response has fallen far short of meeting this challenge,” she continued.

The scientists created the clock in 1947, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero), to convey threats to humanity and the Earth.

The closer to a setting of midnight it gets, the closer it is estimated that a global disaster will occur.

The farthest the minute hand has been from midnight when the Cold War ended in 1991 and the clock was set 17 minutes to midnight.</s>The Doomsday Clock was moved on Thursday to two minutes to midnight – marking the closest the symbolic point of global Armageddon that the clock represents has reached since 1953.

Citing President Trump’s proactive rhetoric toward fellow global powers, North Korea’s continuing nuclear weapon and ballistic missile tests and heightened tensions between the U.S. and Russia, members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said that the world is the closest it has ever been to nuclear annihilation.

“To call the nuclear situation in the world dire is an understatement,” Rachel Bronson, the president of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said at a press conference Thursday in Washington D.C. “It is now two minutes to midnight—the closest the Clock has ever been to Doomsday, and as close as it was in 1953, at the height of the Cold War.”

The Doomsday Clock, which was first introduced in 1947 to represent the threat of a global nuclear war, has in recent years begun to also include climate change, emerging biotechnologies, and cybertechnology that could irrevocably harm life on this planet. The clock was farthest from midnight in 1991, when it was moved back to 17 minutes after the U.S. and Soviet Union signed the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

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Since then – given continued spending on nuclear arsenals, a speeding up of global climate change and mounting instability on the world stage – the clock has slowly crept closer to midnight.

In 2017, the Bulletin moved the clock from 3 minutes to midnight to 2 and half minutes amid comments from Trump on North Korea and fears of a renewed nuclear arms race with Russia. It was the first time the clock had been moved in over two years.

Trump was faulted this year as well for the clock moving forward, with the organization blaming the president’s statements and social media posts for fueling tensions with North Korea and other nuclear powers. The president has drawn heavy criticism for his war of words with North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un, especially after his tweet earlier this month where he boasted that he has a bigger and more powerful "nuclear button" than the leader in Pyongyang.

“In the past year, U.S. allies have needed reassurance about American intentions more than ever,” said Sharon Squassoni, a professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

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“Instead, they have been forced to negotiate a thicket of conflicting policy statements from a U.S. administration weakened in its cadre of foreign policy professionals, suffering from turnover in senior leadership, led by an undisciplined and disruptive president, and unable to develop, coordinate, and clearly communicate a coherent nuclear policy” she added.

The White House did not return Fox News’ request for comment on this story.

The panel at the Bulletin also noted that 2017’s environmental disasters contributed to the moving of the clock toward midnight – specifically noting the Caribbean’s devastating hurricane season, massive wildfires in the U.S. and Canada, heat waves across the globe and the rapidly shrinking Arctic ice caps as major contributors.

“While this was happening, the Trump administration dutifully carried through on the campaign promise of derailing U.S. climate policy, putting avowed climate denialists in top cabinet positions, and announcing plans to withdraw from the Paris climate Agreement,” Sivan Kartha, a senior scientist at the Stockholm Environmental Institute, said. “Thankfully, this didn’t cause global cooperation to unravel, and other countries have reaffirmed their commitment to take action against climate change.”

Despite the grim outlook, the panel assembled Thursday in Washington said there are steps the global community can take to bring the world back from the brink, including starting talks between the U.S. and North Korea, resolving the U.S. and Russia’s differences over the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and redoubling efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“It is not yet midnight and we have come back from the brink before,” Lawrence Krauss, the director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University and the chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Board of Sponsors, said. “It is up to us to do this.”</s>Scientists moved the hands of the symbolic "Doomsday Clock" closer to midnight on Thursday amid increasing worries over nuclear weapons and climate change.

The clock is now two minutes to midnight. “Because of the extraordinary danger of the current moment, the Science and Security Board today moves the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to catastrophe," said Rachel Bronson, president of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "This is the closest the Clock has ever been to Doomsday, and as close as it was in 1953, at the height of the Cold War.”

Each year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a non-profit group that sets the clock, decides whether the events of the previous year pushed humanity closer or farther from destruction.

The symbolic clock is now the closest it's been to midnight since 1953. It was also two minutes to midnight in 1953 when the hydrogen bomb was first tested.

"We've made the clear statement that we feel the world is getting more dangerous," said Lawrence Krauss, chair of the Bulletin's Board of Sponsors and director of Arizona State University's Origins Project. "The danger of nuclear conflagration is not the only reason the clock has been moved forward."

The announcement was made in Washington, D.C., at the National Press Club.

Scientists blamed a cocktail of threats ranging from dangerous political rhetoric to the potential of a nuclear threat as the catalysts for moving the clock closer toward doomsday.

The statement explaining the resetting of the time of the Doomsday Clock notes: “In 2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change, making the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year ago — and as dangerous as it has been since World War II.

"The greatest risks last year arose in the nuclear realm. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program appeared to make remarkable progress in 2017, increasing risks for itself, other countries in the region, and the United States," the statement continued.

"Hyperbolic rhetoric and provocative actions on both sides have increased the possibility of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation."

"On the climate change front, the danger may seem less immediate, but avoiding catastrophic temperature increases in the long run require urgent attention now. The nations of the world will have to significantly decrease their greenhouse gas emissions to keep climate risks manageable, and so far, the global response has fallen far short of meeting this challenge,” the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said.

"Today’s Doomsday Clock announcement must serve as an urgent wake-up call — and could be the last one we get," said Derek Johnson, the executive director of Global Zero, a group that wants to eliminate nuclear weapons.

“Last year, the Clock ticked forward largely in response to candidate Trump’s alarming campaign rhetoric. But the reality of a nuclear-armed President Trump running loose in the world is worse than we feared, and that is clearly a central factor in this decision," Johnson said.

The closer to a setting of midnight it gets, the closer it's estimated that a global disaster will occur. The farthest it's been from midnight was in 1991 as the Cold War ended when the clock was 17 minutes to midnight.

The clock has been maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1947. The group was founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the first nuclear weapons in the Manhattan Project.

The scientists created the clock in 1947 using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the Earth.</s>The Doomsday Clock is now the closest to midnight since the Cold War. Midnight symbolizes the apocalypse. (Source: Bulletin of Atomic Scientists)

(RNN) - Doomsday Clock is now set to two minutes to midnight, 30 seconds closer than last year.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved it forward because of nuclear affairs among various countries.

The Doomsday Clock represents the likelihood of a man-made global catastrophe. A hypothetical global apocalypse as is labeled as "midnight" and The Bulletin's opinion on how close the world is to a global catastrophe as a number of "minutes" to midnight.

According to the Washington Post, in moving the clock 30 seconds closer to the hour of the apocalypse, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists cited “the failure of President Trump and other world leaders to deal with looming threats of nuclear war and climate change.”

The U.S. and Russia are discussing expanding their nuclear arsenal.

Officials blamed the media saying it plays a role in distracting discussion away from threats of nuclear warfare and climate change.

Officials urged citizens of the world to take-action.

“It is not yet midnight and we have moved back from the brink in the past,” one official said.

The danger of nuclear conflagration is not the only reason the clock has been moved forward."

In an op-ed, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists also mentioned climate change, which will affect low-lying countries, which will produce a flood of immigrants to other countries that will “dwarf” the current levels.

Theoretical Physicist, Lawrence M. Krauss states, “The danger of nuclear conflagration is not the only reason the clock has been moved forward."

The closest the minute hand came to midnight was in 1953. The clock read 2 minutes to midnight when the U.S. and Soviet Union began testing the hydrogen bomb.

The farthest the hand was from midnight was at 17 minutes in 1991, with the Cold War ending and the two superpowers reducing their nuclear weapon arsenals following the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

The clock was established in 1947 by a group of experts who were working on the Manhattan Project to design and build the first atomic bomb.</s>(Reuters) - Scientists on Thursday moved ahead by half a minute the symbolic Doomsday Clock, saying the world was at its closest to annihilation since the height of the Cold War due to world leaders’ poor response to threats of nuclear war.

It was the second occasion the timepiece, created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists as an indicator of the world’s susceptibility to cataclysm, was moved forward since the 2016 election of U.S. president Donald Trump.

At two minutes to midnight, the clock is at its closest to catastrophe since 1953, due to dangers of a nuclear holocaust from North Korea’s weapons program, U.S. Russian entanglements, South China Sea tensions, and other factors, the Chicago-based group said in a statement.

“Hyperbolic rhetoric and provocative actions on both sides have increased the possibility of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation,” the group said of North Korea’s nuclear program and the Trump administration’s response to it.

Unchecked dangers linked to climate change were another factor scientists cited for moving the clock forward.

An overarching concern was what scientists described as the demise of diplomacy under the Trump administration.

”International diplomacy has been reduced to name-calling, giving it a surrealistic sense of unreality that makes the world security situation ever more threatening,” they said.

To rewind the clock, scientists recommended Trump refrain from provocative rhetoric regarding North Korea, the two countries open multiple communication channels and the world community seek a cessation of North Korea’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile tests.

The bulletin was founded by scientists who helped develop the United States’ first atomic weapons. Its Science and Security Board decides on the clock’s hands in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 15 Nobel laureates.

When the clock was created in 1947, it was set at 7 minutes to midnight.

Last year the clock’s hands were pushed forward 30 seconds to their second closest point to midnight - two minutes and 30 seconds - after Trump’s statements regarding the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the prospect of actually using them.

In 2016, the clock remained unmoved, its hands staying at three minutes to midnight.

The clock is displayed on the group's website thebulletin.org/</s>The risk of nuclear war and the threat of climate change have caused the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to move the Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to catastrophe to two minutes to midnight.This is closest the clock has been to midnight since the height of the Cold War in 1953.The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists cited "the possibility of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation" as the greatest danger to the world. President Donald Trump's ongoing feud with Kim Jong-un has created an "untenable nuclear threat.""The failure to secure a temporary freeze in 2017 was unsurprising to observers of the downward spiral of nuclear rhetoric between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un."The bulletin also cited conflict between the U.S. and Russia as a possible nuclear risk.The U.S. government's changes in policy in regards to climate change and a "loss of public trust in political institutions, in the media, in science, and in facts themselves" were contributors to the clock moving."The Trump administration, which includes avowed climate denialists in top positions at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department, and other key agencies, has announced its plan to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. In its rush to dismantle rational climate and energy policy, the administration has ignored scientific fact and well-founded economic analyses."</s>The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has advanced their Doomsday Clock to two minutes to midnight, citing higher concerns about the risk of nuclear war.

The Doomsday Clock is a metaphor intended to demonstrate how close the world is to Armageddon, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – a group of experts in nuclear weapons, biological weapons and climate change. They consider all of these factors when setting the clock. Doomsday occurs at midnight, so the closer to midnight the clock is set, the more peril they believe the world is in.

The clock was set at two and a half minutes to midnight in 2017. The last time it was at two minutes to midnight was in 1953 – after the U.S. developed the hydrogen bomb.

At a press conference Thursday about their announcement, scientists said that there were a number of reasons why they decided to advance the clock.

Many of these reasons related directly to the Trump administration in the United States. Conflicting policy statements from the U.S. and threats between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was one factor. The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change was another.

“We’ve made the clear statement that we feel the world is getting more dangerous,” said physicist and board member Lawrence Krauss.

All major nuclear states have continued to invest in their nuclear arsenals, said one member of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and they are afraid that because of a lack of negotiations between Russia and the U.S. on arms control, that the two countries might be entering a new arms race.

In an emailed statement, an anti-nuclear group expressed its concern. “The actions and policies of the nuclear-armed states are winding the Doomsday Clock towards midnight,” said Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

“We have been lucky to avoid conflict through intentional or accidental means, but recent posturing and the false alarms in Hawaii and Japan show our luck is about to run out if we don’t move quickly. A security based on luck is reckless and foolish; it’s exactly what the nuclear states have now.”
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the Doomsday Clock thirty seconds forward, to two minutes before midnight, the closest setting since 1953. The journal cites the closer approach to the point of hypothetical global catastrophe to the failure of world leaders to deal with looming threats of nuclear war (particularly, tensions involving the North Korean nuclear program) and climate change.