The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is once again sounding the alarm, after warnings issued a year ago: "We are even closer to the Apocalypse."

According to the famous organization founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein , J. Robert Oppenheimer and scientists from the University of Chicago who contributed to the development of the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, several factors are putting our lives at risk.

The countdown clock, setting the clock 85 seconds away from global disaster, is likely to be triggered, above all, by tensions fueled by increasingly aggressive nationalism and misinformation. Further worrying messages are coming from climate change and new human-made technologies, including AI.

"A year ago, we sounded the alarm: the world was dangerously close to a global disaster ," the scientists explain, "and any delay in reversing course would increase the likelihood of a catastrophe. Instead of heeding this warning, Russia, China, the United States, and other major countries have become increasingly aggressive, antagonistic, and nationalistic."

The document accompanying the Doomsday Clock update explicitly mentions the Trump administration several times, pointing to increasingly aggressive nationalism and nuclear rearmament, as well as other reckless actions such as cuts to healthcare and research that weaken our ability to respond to pandemics and emerging biological threats.

"The hands of the Doomsday Clock are 85 seconds to midnight, the closest we've ever come to catastrophe. We're facing a major threat," the experts explain, "but also a positive symbol, one that can allow us all to work together toward the goal: the time to act is now ."

(Unioneonline/ns)

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