The Doomsday Clock started ticking in 1947. This was the brainchild of an international group of researchers called the Chicago Atomic Scientists who’d participated in The Manhattan Project – an R&D program that resulted in the production of the first nuclear weapons. Essentially, the Doomsday Clock was designed to calculate precisely how close we are to global catastrophe. Mankind’s proximity to annihilation was simply expressed by the number of “minutes” to midnight. The people who determine the time on the clock aren’t just a bunch of wild-eyed loons. The board is made up of scientists and other boffins with deep knowledge of nuclear technology and climate science – many of them serve as consultants to governments and international agencies. Any change to the clock’s timing is only done after consultation with an illustrious board that currently includes 13 Nobel Laureates. When the Clock was launched in 1947, the time was set at seven minutes to midnight. This figure was calculated on the basis that the greatest danger to humanity came from nuclear weapons and the fact that the US and the Soviet Union were set on a collision course for a nuclear arms race. Over the past 73 years, the…
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