Further from Doomsday?
Jan 15, 2010

Editor's note: Click here to read John's comments on this topic in Global Security Newswire. Click here to listen to his interview on Wisconsin Public Radio from Thursday, January 14, 2010.

Who says that nuclear scientists can’t tell time?

Yesterday, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the doomsday clock one minute further from midnight.

That movement signals that the world is in slightly better shape than a year ago, a little less likely to meet the doomsday of a nuclear holocaust or destruction of the planet by global warming.

The Bulletin issued a statement yesterday saying:

We are poised to bend the arc of history toward a world free of nuclear weapons. For the first time since atomic bombs were dropped in 1945, leaders of nuclear weapons states are cooperating to vastly reduce their arsenals and secure all nuclear bomb-making material. And for the first time ever, industrialized and developing countries alike are pledging to limit climate-changing gas emissions that could render our planet nearly uninhabitable.

In fact, the movement of the Doomsday clock away from zero is appropriate in light of developments in 2009, and could have been moved even further if the decision were based solely on nuclear weapons issues.