{"id":152805,"date":"2012-01-11T13:24:22","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T09:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=152805"},"modified":"2012-01-11T13:24:22","modified_gmt":"2012-01-11T09:24:22","slug":"doomsday-clock-moves-one-minute-closer-to-midnight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2012\/01\/11\/doomsday-clock-moves-one-minute-closer-to-midnight.html","title":{"rendered":"Doomsday Clock Moves One Minute Closer to Midnight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Doomsday Clock, a symbolic gauge of nuclear danger, climate change and other human-caused disasters, has moved one minute closer to midnight because of &#8220;inadequate progress&#8221; on nuclear and climate issues, the <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-asia-16500567\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>BBC<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span> reports.<\/p>\n<p>The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) announced the move \u2014 to five minutes before midnight \u2014 on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The clock last moved one minute back in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>BAS said the failure of multiple nations to control the spread of nuclear weapons was a cause for worry.<\/p>\n<p>The group, which created the clock in 1947, said that two years ago it believed world leaders were trying to address global threat issues.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed,&#8221; it said in a statement to explain the change.<\/p>\n<p>Jayantha Dhanapala, a member of the BAS Board of Sponsors and a former UN undersecretary-general for disarmament affairs, said that while Russia-US nuclear relations were improving, others left much to be desired.<\/p>\n<p>The failure by the US, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, Egypt and Israel to act on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and by North Korea on a treaty to cut off production of nuclear weapons material &#8220;continues to leave the world at risk from continued development of nuclear weapons,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The potential for nuclear weapons use in regional conflicts in the Middle East, Northeast Asia and particularly in South Asia was also alarming, BAS said.<\/p>\n<p>Global climate change was also an issue that needed to be addressed, according to Allison Macfarlane, a BAS Science and Security Board member.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The global community may be near a point of no return in efforts to prevent catastrophe from changes in Earth&#8217;s atmosphere,&#8221; she said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>BAS called for the adoption of climate change agreements to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and significantly greater investment in renewable energy sources.<\/p>\n<p>The group also said that the disaster at Japan&#8217;s Fukushima nuclear plant, caused by the Mar. 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, &#8220;raised significant questions&#8221; about nuclear reactor design and oversight.<\/p>\n<p>The decision to change the time was made after a symposium in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Doomsday Clock, a symbolic gauge of nuclear danger, climate change and other human-caused disasters, has moved one minute closer to&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":152756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[36567,36566,36565,36564],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152805"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}