Doomsday Clock Now Two and a Half Minutes Closer to 'Midnight' Because of Donald Trump

Who would have thought that the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States will have a great impact in the symbolic Doomsday Clock?

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has recently announced that the Doomsday Clock is now 2 ½ minutes closer to "midnight."

Members of the Bulletin noted that the decision to move the clock 2 minutes and 30 seconds closer to the fall of man was made after the international community failed to mitigate some of humanity's most pressing issues, including nuclear weapons and climate change. Additionally, the decision of the Bulletin was also influenced by the recent result of the U.S. presidential election.

"Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the clock largely because of the statements of a single person. But when that person is the new president of the United States, his words matter," wrote theoretical physicist Lawrence M. Krauss and retired Navy Rear Adm. David Titley, in a New York Times op-ed.

"He has made ill-considered comments about expanding and even deploying the American nuclear arsenal. He has expressed disbelief in the scientific consensus on global warming."

Since its inception in 1947, the Doomsday Clock has become an iconic symbol representing how close and vulnerable humans are to inadvertently ending the world, which is symbolized the word "midnight".

The clock has wavered between two minutes and 17 minutes in the last 70 years. However, the clock has never been this close to midnight since 1953, when the U.S. tested their first thermonuclear device, followed by the hydrogen bomb test of the former Soviet Union.

Aside from Donald Trump, other factors that forced the moving of the doomsday clock include the persistent development of nuclear weapons by North Korea. The growing conflict between Russia and the U.S., which holds most of the world's nuclear arsenals also played a role to decision of the Bulletin.

Furthermore, the mixed results of the global efforts to address the problem of climate change also contributed to the Doomsday Clock.