“We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age. Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices ... As in past deliberations, we have examined other human-made threats to civilisation. We have concluded that the dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons.”
On 18 January, the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands on the Doomsday Clock from seven to five minutes to midnight, reflecting what the scientists called the “deteriorating state of global affairs”. It is the closest we have been to “midnight” since the height of the Cold War. The clock was created in 1947 to symbolise the urgency of the global nuclear threat.
See http://www.thebulletin.org/minutes-to-midnight for further information.
With Britain and the US poised to develop and extend the lifetime of their nuclear capability, more countries going down the nuclear path, and the unprecedented threats to global security posed by our changing climate, in our lifetimes at least, there may never be a more urgent time to act...