The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which measures the civilization-ending potential of nuclear weapons, climate change, and potentially dangerous emerging technologies in the life sciences, issued a press release yesterday announcing that the famous Doomsday Clock would be reset from five minutes to midnight to six minutes to midnight.  From the BAS Board:

It is 6 minutes to midnight. We are poised to bend the arc of history toward a world free of nuclear weapons. For the first time since atomic bombs were dropped in 1945, leaders of nuclear weapons states are cooperating to vastly reduce their arsenals and secure all nuclear bomb-making material. And for the first time ever, industrialized and developing countries alike are pledging to limit climate-changing gas emissions that could render our planet nearly uninhabitable. These unprecedented steps are signs of a growing political will to tackle the two gravest threats to civilization--the terror of nuclear weapons and runaway climate change. 

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was formed in 1945 by former Manhattan Project physicists after the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The famous Doomsday Clock came into existence in 1947, and was initially set at seven minutes to midnight.  Throughout the Doomsday Clock's sixty-three years, settings have ranged from seventeen minutes to midnight in 1991 - after the United States and Soviet Union signed START-I and before Pakistan and North Korea developed nuclear weapons - to two minutes to midnight in 1953, during a particularly vigorous round of both U.S. and Soviet nuclear tests. 

  Serious progress was made under Kennedy and George H.W. Bush. Could the Obama Administration leave a similar legacy? Including yesterday, the clock has been moved nineteen times since it's inception, with an average of 3.3 years between changes.  For the Bulletin to make a change usually requires some sort of major event or abrupt policy about-face: the last time the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists changed the Doomsday Clock was in 2007, in response to a North Korean test, Iranian belligerence, and U.S. policy emphasizing the military utility of nuclear weapons.  2007 also saw the first inclusion of environmental destruction as a factor in the setting of the Doomsday Clock. 

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists's Board of Sponsors includes nineteen Nobel laureates, as well as public intellectuals like Brian Greene, Stephen Hawking, and Freeman Dyson.  Past sponsors include Arthur C. Clarke, Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Linus Pauling, and Edward Teller.  Basically, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists represents the best policy-oriented scientific minds on the planet: it's the closest humanity may ever get to Philosopher Kings. 

That the Doomsday Clock was only moved one minute represents the kind of measured skepticism one might expect from the world's top scientists.  According to the Bulletin's press release:

This hopeful state of world affairs leads the boards of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists...to move the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock back from five to six minutes to midnight. By shifting the hand back from midnight by only one additional minute, we emphasize how much needs to be accomplished, while at the same time recognizing signs of collaboration among the United States, Russia, the European Union, India, China, Brazil, and others on nuclear security and on climate stabilization...A key to the new era of cooperation is a change in the U.S. government's orientation toward international affairs brought about in part by the election of Obama. With a more pragmatic, problem-solving approach, not only has Obama initiated new arms reduction talks with Russia, he has started negotiations with Iran to close its nuclear enrichment program, and directed the U.S. government to lead a global effort to secure loose fissile material in four years. He also presided over the U.N. Security Council last September where he supported a fissile material cutoff treaty and encouraged all countries to live up to their disarmament and nonproliferation obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty...        

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists's announcement is the most measured assessment of humanity's capacity to destroy itself; unfortunately, the BAS press release was upstaged by the earthquake in Haiti, obesity, and even the 2012 Doomsday, which has twenty times the Doomsday Clock's Google presence.  It's time people wake up to what we're doing to the planet.  Reprinted below are sobering assessments from some of the greatest minds in policy and science:

"The time to begin to free ourselves from the terror of nuclear weapons and to slow drastic changes to our shared global environment is now. We encourage scientists to fulfill their dual responsibilities of increasing their own, as well as the public's understanding of these issues and to help lead the call to action. We urge leaders to fulfill the promise of a nuclear weapon-free world and to act now to slow the pace of climate change. Finally, we call on citizens everywhere to raise their voices and compel public action for a safer world now and for future generations. Even though we are encouraged by recent developments, we are mindful of the fact that the Clock is ticking." - Lawrence Krauss, co-chair, BAS Board of Sponsors, foundation professor, School of Earth and Space Exploration and Physics departments, associate director, Beyond Center, co-director, Cosmology Initiative, and director, New Origins Initiative, Arizona State University

"In the saga of human history civilizations have been threatened both by natural causes and by man-made folly. Some have survived by making the necessary rational responses to the challenges. Others have gone under leaving only their ruins. Today it is the entire planet that stands imperiled by the danger of nuclear weapons and the real risk of climate change inexorably threatening our ecosystem. Both impending disasters are within our capabilities to remedy. The opportunity must be seized now out of a recognition that these are global dangers that transcend national boundaries." - Jayantha Dhanapala, member, BAS Board of Sponsors, president, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, and chair, 1995 UN Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Conference

"We may be at a turning point, where major powers realize that nuclear weapons are useless for war-fighting or even for deterrence. Threats to security are more likely to come from economic collapse, groups bent on terrorizing civilians, or from resource scarcity exacerbated by climate change and exploding populations, rather than from conflict between nuclear-armed superpowers. Against these new threats, nuclear weapons are a liability because their possession by a few countries stimulates desire in other countries and complicates things immensely." - Pervez Hoodbhoy, member, BAS Board of Sponsors, professor of high energy physics, and head, Physics Department, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan

"The emerging trends in international cooperation will provide a basis for collaborative problem-solving for a safer world. But a handful of government officials, no matter how bold their vision, will not be able, on their own, to deal with the threats to civilization that we now face. Leaders and citizens around the world will need to summon the courage to overcome obstacles to nuclear security and climate protection. That is why we have created TurnBackTheClock.org to allow citizens around the world a means by which to get involved and to inspire leaders to take action." - Kennette Benedict, executive director, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists