Context: 

For the second consecutive year the hands of the ‘Doomsday Clock’ remained at ‘100 seconds to midnight’.

• The hands of the clock in 2023  moved from two minutes to 100 seconds for the first time in history, indicating an unprecedented existential threat to humanity.

About Doomsday Clock

• Designed by: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded by Albert Einstein and students from the University of Chicago in 1945, created the ‘Doomsday Clock’
• A Metaphor: It acts as a symbol to represent how close the world is to a possible apocalypse
  • By creating imagery of an apocalypse (midnight)
  • Using the contemporary idiom of a nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to illustrate the threats to humanity.
• It is set annually by a panel of scientists, including 13 Nobel laureates, based on the world’s threats in that year. 
• Timeline: The clock was originally set to seven minutes to midnight and The furthest it has been is 17 minutes after the end of the Cold War in 1991 with 2023 seeing the Clock moving to 100 seconds to Midnight.
• Threats:  Nuclear weapons, Climate Change, Pandemics and disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence.

100 Seconds to Midnight

• Reasons:  Prevailing climate conditions, “cyber-based disinformation” and nuclear risk and the due to the debilitating impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
• Significance: The recognition that we now face a true emergency – an absolutely unacceptable state of world affairs that has eliminated any margin for error or further delay.
• Suggestions:  The bulletin stressed to set more ambitious and comprehensive limits of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, accelerate biological research, push for more decarbonisation and also combat internet-enabled misinformation.

News Source: The Indian Express

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