'Doomsday Clock' predicted to change: Here's what this means for the world

Updated on October 7, 2022 at 5:17 PM

by Luan Trimi

The Doomsday Clock could move forward infamously closer to the midnight mark due to the ongoing nuclear rhetoric between Russia and the west.

Vladimir Putin's nuclear threats likely to push doomsday clock closer to midnight

Newsweekreports that the recent escalation of the war in Ukraine with Russia’s decree for mobilization, and the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, and with the heightened nuclear rhetoric that is ongoing this period, we will likely see a change in the Doomsday Clock next January in 2023.

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This follows what experts are describing an escalation on the side of Russian President Vladimir Putin who not only signed a partial mobilisation decree, but also annexed four regions or one fifth of Ukrainian territory, and has been repeatedly threatening the west with nuclear weapons.

Reading the Doomsday Clock

The Doomsday Clock was introduced by the nonprofit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which is a science and security organisation that was originally founded in 1947 by the former scientists of the Manhattan Project, Newsweek reports.

thumbnail — Vladimir Putin's nuclear threats likely to push doomsday clock closer to midnight Chicago Tribune / Contributeur

The Doomsday Clock is a tool to record our proximity to Armageddon through a visual representation on how close its minute hand is to midnight.

Every January the scientists responsible for resetting the time determine whether a change or not will be made to the minute hand.

Escalation in the nuclear rhetoric

Times ofIndia reports that in 1953 US and Russia and their thermonuclear tests pushed the Doomsday Clock to two minutes to midnight. However, seeing the escalation on the side of Vladimir Putin and the warnings by the US against the use of nukes, a change is expected.

For the past three years, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board, kept the minute hand at 100 seconds to midnight.

Nevertheless, with the recent trend of exchanging threats and with the sensitization of the public with the nuclear rhetoric, the Doomsday Clock will likely move forward closer to midnight in January, 2023.

Sources used:

-Newsweek:‘Doomsday Clock Today: Are Putin's Threats Pushing It Closer to Midnight?’

-Times of India: ‘Vladimir Putin and the ticking of the Doomsday Clock’

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