Robert Socolow, a professor at Princeton University, sits alongside the Doomsday Clock Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
The doomsday clock - which shows how close the world has moved to catastrophic destruction - has inched a minute closer to midnight.
It puts the measure of how capable mankind is of imploding on itself at five minutes to 12.
The clock, in reality an indicator, is set by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS). It shows how capable mankind is of destroying itself. It started in 1947, at the beginning of the cold war, just two years after America dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In recent years, the minute hand has been moving away from midnight. It's moved closer this time because of fears of nuclear weapons, the BAS says: "Two years ago, it appeared that world leaders might address the truly global threats that we face. In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed."
The factors that set the clock now include other developments in science that could inflict devastating harm, and climate changing technologies.
Lawrence Krauss, co-chair, BAS Board of Sponsors, says:
Unfortunately, Einstein's statement in 1946 that 'everything has changed, save the way we think,' remains true. The provisional developments of 2 years ago have not been sustained, and it makes sense to move the clock closer to midnight, back to the value it had in 2007. Faced with clear and present dangers of nuclear proliferation and climate change, and the need to find sustainable and safe sources of energy, world leads are failing to change business as usual. Inaction on key issues including climate change, and rising international tensions motivate the movement of the clock
The closest the clock, published in the BAS magazine, has come to midnight was back in 1953. The United States decided to develop the hydrogen bomb - far more powerful than any atomic bomb. It tested the device in 1952, and the next year, the clock was put a minute further forward. "The hands of the Clock of Doom have moved again" was announced by the bulletin. "Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization."
Allison Macfarlane, chair, BAS Science and Security Board, says:
The global community may be near a point of no return in efforts to prevent catastrophe from changes in Earth's atmosphere. The International Energy Agency projects that, unless societies begin building alternatives to carbon-emitting energy technologies over the next five years, the world is doomed to a warmer climate, harsher weather, droughts, famine, water scarcity, rising sea levels, loss of island nations, and increasing ocean acidification
The furthest the clock has been from midnight was in 1991, when the cold war was declared officially over. It swung back from 10 minutes to 17, after the strategic arms reduction treaty reduced the number of strategic nuclear weapons from the United States and Russia.
The data is below. What can you do with it?
• Get the data
Data summary
Doomsday clock over time
Click heading to sort
|
Year
|
Minutes to midnight
|
Reason given by Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
|
|
|
|
1947
|
7
|
As the Bulletin evolves from a newsletter into a magazine, the Clock appears on the cover for the first time. It symbolizes the urgency of the nuclear dangers
|
|
1949
|
3
|
The Soviet Union denies it, but in the fall, President Harry Truman tells the American public that the Soviets tested their first nuclear device, officially starting the arms race.
|
|
1953
|
2
|
After much debate, the United States decides to pursue the hydrogen bomb, a weapon far more powerful than any atomic bomb.
|
|
1960
|
7
|
Political actions belie the tough talk of "massive retaliation." For the first time, the United States and Soviet Union appear eager to avoid direct confrontation
|
|
1963
|
12
|
After a decade of almost non-stop nuclear tests, the United States and Soviet Union sign the Partial Test Ban Treaty, which ends all atmospheric nuclear testing.
|
|
1968
|
7
|
Regional wars rage. U.S. involvement in Vietnam intensifies, India and Pakistan battle in 1965, and Israel and its Arab neighbors renew hostilities in 1967. Worse yet, France and China develop nuclear weapons to assert themselves as global players.
|
|
1969
|
10
|
Nearly all of the world's nations come together to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The deal is simple--the nuclear weapon states vow to help the treaty's non-nuclear weapon signatories develop nuclear power if they promise to forego producing nuclear weapons.
|
|
1972
|
12
|
The United States and Soviet Union attempt to curb the race for nuclear superiority by signing the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.
|
|
1974
|
9
|
South Asia gets the Bomb, as India tests its first nuclear device. And any gains in previous arms control agreements seem like a mirage.
|
|
1980
|
7
|
Thirty-five years after the start of the nuclear age and after some promising disarmament gains, the United States and the Soviet Union still view nuclear weapons as an integral component of their national security.
|
|
1981
|
4
|
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan hardens the U.S. nuclear posture. Before he leaves office, President Jimmy Carter pulls the United States from the Olympics Games in Moscow and considers ways in which the United States could win a nuclear war.
|
|
1984
|
3
|
U.S.-Soviet relations reach their iciest point in decades. "Every channel of communications has been constricted or shut down; every form of contact has been attenuated or cut off.
|
|
1988
|
6
|
The United States and Soviet Union sign the historic Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the first agreement to actually ban a whole category of nuclear weapons.
|
|
1990
|
10
|
In late 1989, the Berlin Wall falls, symbolically ending the Cold War. "Forty-four years after Winston Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech, the myth of monolithic communism has been shattered for all to see."
|
|
1991
|
17
|
With the Cold War officially over, the United States and Russia begin making deep cuts to their nuclear arsenals.
|
|
1995
|
14
|
Hopes for a large post-Cold War peace dividend and a renouncing of nuclear weapons fade.
|
|
1998
|
9
|
India and Pakistan stage nuclear weapons tests only three weeks apart. "The tests are a symptom of the failure of the international community to fully commit itself to control the spread of nuclear weapons – and to work toward substantial reductions in the numbers of these weapons."
|
|
2002
|
7
|
Concerns regarding a nuclear terrorist attack underscore the enormous amount of unsecured–and sometimes unaccounted for–weapon-grade nuclear materials located throughout the world.
|
|
2007
|
5
|
The world stands at the brink of a second nuclear age. The United States and Russia remain ready to stage a nuclear attack within minutes, North Korea conducts a nuclear test, and many in the international community worry that Iran plans to acquire the Bomb.
|
|
2010
|
6
|
Talks between Washington and Moscow for a follow-on agreement to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty are nearly complete, and more negotiations for further reductions in the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenal are already planned.
|
|
2012
|
5
|
"The challenges to rid the world of nuclear weapons, harness nuclear power, and meet the nearly inexorable climate disruptions from global warming are complex and interconnected. In the face of such complex problems, it is difficult to see where the capacity lies to address these challenges.”
|
Download the data
• DATA: download the full spreadsheet
More open data
Data journalism and data
visualisations from the Guardian
World government data
• Search the
world's government data with our gateway
Development and aid data
• Search
the world's global development data with our gateway
Can you do something with this data?
• Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups
on our Flickr
group
• Contact us at data@guardian.co.uk
• Get
the A-Z of data
• More at the Datastore
directory
• Follow us on Twitter
• Like
us on Facebook
Comments
Sign in to comment or to join the conversation
11 January 2012 4:51PM
Is it me or does the guy in this picture look exactly like Dr Strangelove?
11 January 2012 5:06PM
I do not think we are that close to nuclear war and in fact I think we are probably the furthest that we have been from a large scale nuclear war for some time.
Climate change and other ways for humans to cease to exist are to complicated to represent as a clock.
11 January 2012 5:17PM
What goes around comes around,
I am reminded of one of the few truths to come out of the bible-Father forgive them for they know not wat they do, to put it in modern parlance 'they' are an ignorant lot !
11 January 2012 5:24PM
Danger will always remain as long as any nation possesses nuclear weapons.
However we are a long way from the days of Reagan, Thatcher and Andropov along with the intense suspicion West and East viewed each other. As for the dangers of Climate change I agree with Knowles2 above in that it is impossible to quantify the risk the world is taking.
11 January 2012 5:34PM
The clock might move another minute or two toward midnight once the unrecognized mortal threat of hundreds of meltdowns at nuclear plants from a probable solar storm is widely understood.
See 400 Chernobyls in Dire Warnings on the Aesop Institute website to grasp the problem.
Europe is one of the regions of greatest risk of power grid collapse and consequent nuclear plant meltdowns.
11 January 2012 5:53PM
Scare-mongering!
Scientists. More warnings they predict more laughable they become. : /
11 January 2012 6:18PM
IMO, it's a bit cheeky of these scientists to shift the blame for increased nuclear tensions to the US and Russia, and kind of downplay the role that Iran has played.
11 January 2012 6:40PM
They should have moved it five minutes ahead instead of only the one. The only way people would "sit up and listen" (climate change deniers especially).
11 January 2012 6:52PM
Frazer: We're doomed!
11 January 2012 7:20PM
I'd like to know the response to this event from the bunch of clowns running for the U.S. Republican presidential nomination. They are climate change deniers and warmongers whose main concern is to deny women control of their reproductive choices.
11 January 2012 8:57PM
Climate-change (deniers especially) see these things after they have indeed "sat up and listened" to the ever so many n varied scientists contradicting themselves over this climate change lie (spoof) that we don't even care/take notice of the lastest piece of sensational news. These days. We sleep well in our beds at neet!
12 January 2012 12:58PM
Iran has no nuclear weapons. Israel on the other hand has at least two hundred nuclear weapons and a proven history of attacking its neighbours. Now tell me who is causing nuclear tensions in the middle east.