Donald Trump Moves Doomsday Clock Thirty Seconds Closer To Midnight

The Doomsday Clock’s hand has inched forward, leaving two and a half minutes until midnight. The thirty second jump on the symbolic clock can be blamed on one factor: Donald Trump. The Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is in charge of the clock, and say it is concerned with “unsettling” and “ill-considered” statements by President Trump on nuclear weapons and climate change. A statement from the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board says “Over the course of 2016, the global security landscape darkened as the international community failed to come effectively to grips with humanity’s most pressing existential threats, nuclear weapons and climate change … This already-threatening world situation was the backdrop for a rise in strident nationalism worldwide in 2016, including in a US presidential campaign during which the eventual victor, Donald Trump, made disturbing comments about the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons and expressed disbelief in the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change …The board’s decision to move the clock less than a full minute — something it has never before done — reflects a simple reality: As this statement is issued, Donald Trump has been the US president only a matter of days …”. The last time the Doomsday Clock moved was in 2015, from five to three minutes, the closest it had been since the arms race of the 1980s. The 70-year-old clock is meant to symbolize threats to humanity including nuclear weapons and climate change.