‘Doomsday Clock’ Warns: Threat of Nuclear War Is Biggest Since 1945

For thousands of years, apocalypse warnings have been given and taken. With fears being expressed of a nuclear war and climate change, does the planet need to start thinking the worst?

Entering 2022, few expected that US President Joe Biden would talk about the risk of a nuclear disaster after Russia’s threats of nuclear use following the invasion of Ukraine. “I don’t think you could easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon without ending up causing nuclear Armageddon,” he said last October.

And UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the planet is “on an avenue to climate hell”.

Climate change caused severe flooding in Pakistan last year, China sweated under an unprecedented 70-day heatwave and crops failed to bear fruit in the Horn of Africa.

The Global Challenges Foundation, a Swedish group that assesses catastrophic risks, warned in an annual report that the threat of using nuclear weapons is the greatest since 1945 when the US destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The report warned that a full nuclear exchange, in addition to causing massive loss of life, would cause clouds of dust that would shade the sun, reduce the ability to produce food and usher in “a period of chaos and violence, in which most of the surviving world population would starve to death,” according to the france24.comwhich is cited by AFP.

And while a Russian nuclear strike would likely involve small “tactical” nukes, experts fear a rapid escalation if the US responds.

“Then we’re in a completely different game,” said Kennette Benedict, senior adviser to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which in January will reveal its latest assessment of the “doomsday clock” set from 2021 to 100 seconds until midnight.

While attention is focused on war in UkraineUS intelligence agencies believe North Korea is ready for a seventh nuclear test, Biden has effectively declared a deal over Iran’s disputed nuclear project dead, and tensions between India and Pakistan are “simmering.”