The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) has just announced that they will move the minute hand of the “Doomsday Clock” forward on 17 January 2007 — the first such change to the Clock since February 2002.
The group says that this is a major new step reflecting growing concerns about a “Second Nuclear Age”, frought with grave threats, including: nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, the continuing “launch-ready” status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia, escalating terrorism, and new pressures from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks.
According to an email just received, this move will be announced simultaneously next week in Washington, D.C. and London.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists says that we are now in the “most perilous period since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”