Doomsday Clock on 11:55

When this clock will show 12:00 there would probably be nobody who will be able to write about it. Doomsday Clock is active since 1947, it was created in order to show in a symbolic way how the humanity is close to its final extinction.

Since the information about it was published for a first time the authors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published by the Chicago University had moved its arms for several times. At the beginning, it was showing 11.53. The most dangerous time was in 1953 when, according to scientists we were just "two minutes" to the end of the world. The second moment was in 1984 (11:57) and the arms race between the US and USSR. Thus, only few years later the Cold War ended and the situation seemed to get better and after two main rivals had signed the START1 treaty, the arm had moved to 11:43. The blow of optimism remained only for several years, we are now observing that the clock is going back to "midnight" once again.

Quite meaningful is the fact, that the scientists from Chicago had added one more criterium in 1990's - the climate change. It is, together with the growing tensions in the international relations, the reason why on January 10th the arm has gone back to its position from 2007.

Is the situation in the world so bad? If we look at the arms and compare their position with the previous one, we will notice that there is still pretty much space left. There was much worse after all. Of course, there was and we need to remeber about that, but on the other hand the clock itself is just a kind of symbolic indicator which is being designed by relatively small group of scientists. They are just humans and they make mistakes just like all people do.
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