Doomsday Clock Moves Forward a Minute: Worrisome or Wacky?

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has been running its symbolic "Doomsday Clock" since 1947, when the development of nuclear weaponry persuaded them to offer the public some kind of warning. They arbitrarily change how many "minutes to midnight" to reflect how close humanity is to dooming itself. The clock has been static since 2010, when it was moved from 5 minutes to 6 minutes -- a symbolic gain for humanity. But this year they pushed it back to 5 minutes.

Their website explains, "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 ... Political processes seem wholly inadequate; the potential for nuclear weapons use in regional conflicts in the Middle East, Northeast Asia, and South Asia are alarming."

The Bulletin originally set the clock to seven minutes before midnight in 1947, and over the years it has fluctuated, at the Bulletin's discretion, between an all-time low of 2 minutes (1953) and a high of 17 minutes (1991). If you want to read the Bulletin's summary of past changes, it's all layed out on their website.