Is the end of the world nigh? Atomic scientists set to make ‘major announcement’ about Doomsday Clock

2012: FIVE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• Difficulty in ridding the world of nuclear weapons and harnessing nuclear power
• Potential for nuclear weapons use in regional conflicts in the Middle East, Northeast Asia, and South Asia described as alarming
• Difficulty dealing with climate disruption from global warming

2010:SIX MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• Belief that civilisation is moving closer to being free of nuclear weapons
•  
• 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 US and Russian nuclear arsenal are already planned
•  
• Dangers posed by climate change are growing, but ‘there are pockets of progress’. Most notably, at Copenhagen, the developing and industrialized countries agree to take responsibility for carbon emissions

2007: FIVE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• World described to be 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
•  
• Climate change also presents a dire challenge to humanity
•  
• Damage to ecosystems is already taking place; flooding, destructive storms, increased drought, and polar ice melt are causing loss of life and property

2002: SEVEN MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• Concerns regarding a nuclear terrorist attack underscore enormous amount of unsecured -and sometimes unaccounted for – weapon-grade nuclear materials
• US expresses a desire to design new nuclear weapons

1998: NINE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• India and Pakistan stage nuclear weapons tests only three weeks apart
•  
• Russia and the United States ‘continue to serve as poor examples to the rest of the world’
•  
• Together, they still maintain 7,000 warheads ready to fire at each other within 15 minutes

1995: 14 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• Hopes for a large post-Cold War peace and a renouncing of nuclear weapons fade
•  
• More than 40,000 nuclear weapons remain worldwide
•  
• Concern that terrorists could exploit poorly secured nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union

1991: 17 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• Cold War is officially over and the US and Russia begin making cuts to their nuclear arsenals

1990:  10 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• One Eastern European country after another frees itself from Soviet control
•  
• In late 1989, the Berlin Wall falls, symbolically ending the Cold War

1988: SIX MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• The US and Soviet Union sign the historic Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the first agreement to actually ban a whole category of nuclear weapons

1984: THREE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• US-Soviet relations reach their iciest point in decades and dialogue between the two superpowers virtually stops
•  
• The US seems to flout the few arms control agreements in place by seeking an expansive, space-based anti-ballistic missile capability, raising worries that a new arms race will begin

1981: FOUR MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan hardens the U.S. nuclear posture
•  
• President Jimmy Carter pulls the US from the Olympic Games in Moscow and considers ways in which the US could win a nuclear war
•  
• President Reagan scraps talk of arms control and proposes that the best way to end the Cold War is for the US to win it

1980: SEVEN MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• The bulletin describes the Soviet Union and US as ‘nucleoholics’ – drunks who insist that a drink being consumed is ‘the last one,’ but who can always find a good excuse for one more

1974: NINE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• South Asia gets the Bomb, as India tests its first nuclear device
•  
• The US and Soviet Union appear to be modernising their nuclear forces, not reducing them

1972: 12 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• The US and Soviet Union attempt to curb the race for nuclear superiority by signing treaty

1969: 10 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• 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

1968: SEVEN MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT 

• Regional wars are raging
•  
• US involvement in Vietnam intensifies, India and Pakistan battle in 1965, and Israel and its Arab neighbors renew hostilities in 1967
•  
• France and China develop nuclear weapons to assert themselves as global players

1963: 12 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• After a decade of almost non-stop nuclear tests, the US and Soviet Union sign the Partial Test Ban Treaty, which ends all atmospheric nuclear testing
• Signals awareness among the Soviets and United States that they need to work together to prevent nuclear annihilation

1960: SEVEN MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• For the first time, the US and Soviet Union appear eager to avoid direct confrontation

1953: TWO MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• After much debate, the US decides to pursue the hydrogen bomb, a weapon far more powerful than any atomic bomb

1949: THREE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• Soviet Union denies it, but President Truman tells the American public that the Soviets tested their first nuclear device – officially starting the arms race

1947: SEVEN MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• As the Bulletin evolves from a newsletter into a magazine, the Clock appears on the cover for the first time

 Source: Bulletin of Atomic Scientists