CLIMATE CHANGE ADVANCES DOOMSDAY CLOCK

Climate change inaction pushes 'doomsday clock' closest to midnight since 1984; Symbolic clock is now at three minutes to apocalypse, the darkest hour for humanity since the cold war

Suzanne Goldenberg, 22 January 2015 (UK Guardian)

“The symbolic doomsday clock moved to three minutes before midnight… because of the gathering dangers of climate change and nuclear proliferation, signalling the gravest threat to humanity since the throes of the cold war…It was the closest the clock has come to midnight since 1984, when arms-control negotiations stalled and virtually all channels of communication between the US and the former Soviet Union closed down…The move came as scientists sounded a warning about climate change for the second time in three years…2014 was the hottest year in 130 years of systematic record keeping. Nine of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000…But the scientists suggested that the greater danger lay in the failure of leaders to recognise and act on climate change…The greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change have risen more since 2000 than in the three previous decades combined…[Yet, negotiators have] steadily lowered their ambitions for a global climate deal…In 1991, when the threat of nuclear annihilation receded with the end of the cold war, the clock stood at 17 minutes to midnight…” click here for more

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