World 'five minutes from disaster'
The scientists are concerned about the threat of global warming
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Wednesday, 17, Jan 2007 04:47
The world is closer to disaster than it has been since the cold war, a group of atomic scientists has said today.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) has adjusted its Doomsday Clock from seven minutes to midnight to five minutes to the hour, indicating what the magazine perceives has a been a bad 12 months for the world.
In high-profile joint press conferences in Washington DC and London, leading scientists, including the author Stephen Hawking, said that the world is drifting closer to catastrophe because of the threat posed by nuclear war and climate change.
"We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age," the BAS statement warned.
"Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices. North Korea's recent test of a nuclear weapon, Iran's nuclear ambitions, a renewed emphasis on the military utility of nuclear weapons, the failure to adequately secure nuclear materials, and the continued presence of some 26,000 nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia are symptomatic of a failure to solve the problems posed by the most destructive technology on Earth."
The scientists also say that the "dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons", adding that "over the next three to four decades climate change could cause irremediable harm to the habitats upon which human societies depend for survival".
The clock, which was created in 1945, was last adjusted in February 2002 after the events and consequences of September 11th 2001 and has only been changed 17 times in its history before today.
Russia and the US's testing of nuclear weapons in 1953 saw the clock edge two minutes away from the hour, while 1984's breakdown in arms talks between the superpowers prompted the scientists to turn the clock to three minutes to midnight.
Professor Hawking, fellow of The Royal Society and author of the bestselling book A Brief History of Time, said: "As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth.
"As citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day, and to the perils we foresee if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change."
Each decision to move the clock's minute hand is made by the BAS board of directors and its sponsors, which includes 18 Nobel laureates.