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'Doomsday Clock' moves closer to Midnight

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A trans-Atlantic group of prominent scientists have moved the minute hand of the famous Doomsday Clock further by two minutes.

Now the clock reads 11:55. The clock has moved forward for the fourth time since the end of Cold war amid the fears as a ‘second nuclear age‘.

According to the organization the climatic changes also pose a similar threat as the nuclear weapons.

Stephen Hawking commented on the scenario by saying:

“As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth and as citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day, and to the perils we foresee if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change.”

The clock had till now measured only the dangers that are emerging with more and more nations going nuke but now it will also measure the climatic changes. The threat of a nuclear war always remains prominent but we cannot ignore the other gradual changes to the climate that are because of the greenhouse gases.
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The clock came closest to midnight in 1953 when it read two minutes to midnight, following the successful test of a hydrogen bomb by United States. The clock has been 17 minutes away from midnight in 1991 following the demise of Soviet Union.

We know that fifty nuclear bombs can kill 200 million people and a little more can wipe out the entire humankind from the planet. But we also cannot ignore the threat that global warming poses. It is a slow process but the results are as dangerous as a nuclear war.

Click here to watch Stephen Hawking talking on the scenario.

Via: BBC

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