Doomsday Clock remains at 100 seconds to midnight amid climate change, cybersecurity and pandemi

 https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6321614

Doomsday Clock remains at 100 seconds to midnight amid climate change, cybersecurity and pandemics.

The Doomsday Clock remains at 100 seconds to midnight.

The new time on the clock — a metaphorical representation of how close humanity is to destruction — was revealed Thursday morning by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

"Today, the members of the science and security board [SASB] find the world to be no safer than it was last year at this time, and therefore have decided to set the Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight," Rachel Bronson, president and CEO, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said at a press conference via Zoom.

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"The Doomsday Clock continues to hover dangerously, reminding us how much work is needed to ensure a safer and healthier planet. We must continue to push the hands of the clock away from midnight."

Some of the issues of concern, the scientists noted, were nuclear proliferation, climate change, the pandemic, cybersecurity and the impacts of mis- and disinformation on social media. 

The organization noted the extreme effects of climate change over the past year, including the record-breaking heat in Western Canada and the U.S., as well as the record-breaking temperature in the Siberian Arctic, droughts in eastern Africa and floods in China and Europe.