Three Minutes to Midnight

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists oversees a clock, a metaphor for how close humanity is to destroying the Blue Planet. This clock has been the closest to midnight (Doomsday) since the Cold War. In 2002, the clock was set at 7 minutes to midnight; just 13 years later, in 2015, the clock is left with only 3 minutes until Doomsday.

The clock is a representation of how close the world is to global catastrophe. The time changes mainly due to an increase in a country’s nuclear arms and potential to end the world. However, the reason humanity isn’t far from annihilation is due to unchecked climate changes, global nuclear weapons modernisations, and nuclear arsenals that have tremendous size and potential.

Russia leads the nuclear warhead count with 7700 warheads. Not far behind lies The United States with a nuclear count of 7100. Combined, the two countries own more than 90% of the world’s nuclear warheads (16,000 in total). These problems pose undeniable threats to the existence of humanity, and world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe.

The number of nuclear weapons reached its peak in the 1980’s during the Cold War. Today, more countries possess nuclear weapons, but they aren’t producing these warheads at as alarming a rate.