Two minutes to midnight

That clock has been close to midnight my whole life. 69 years.

If they do start throwing nukes about I would hope one hit me on the head rather than a close miss killing me by a slow death from radiation.

In other circumstances such as an epidemic or climate change I am in a location where a subsistence existence could be possible for a time.

Private water supply gravity fed, sewage system , solar panels which could be modified to provide DC power in daylight hours, wood burner with back boiler for hot water and a gravity fed radiator. Problem is when other survivors notice that I (or whoever is living here)  would be run off or killed without doubt. When push comes to shove I would do the same but I am too old to put up much of a fight. I have no weapons apart from axes and knives.

I would hope my wine cellar was well stocked. :)

Well, of course the clock has always been close to midnight. Maybe this'll help:

The point is, it's as close to midnight now as it has ever been.  

1953: Two minutes to midnight.

1960: America nearly launches unprovoked nuclear strike on Russia when NORAD early warning system mistakes the rising moon for a Soviet first-strike

1962: Cuban Missile Crisis

1983: Operation Able Archer. Stanislav Petrov saves the world & is court-martialled.  

Thanks for this graph DF5 that is very interesting indeed.

What jumps out at me is the political situation when the clock was closest to midnight. Might just be a coincidence but it seems Conservative governments are more scary than Labour ones.:)

So we were last this close during the Thatcher/Reagan years. 

Yes interesting indeed but is there a time lag you are missing with this data? Could be that it takes a year or two for the change to occur after the election?

Here's a chart showing the magnitude and direction of each change to the clock, again coded for the party of the incumbent president. I'm really surprised by this, but the data says that the net change under Democrats was an overall swing of 18 minutes towards midnight , whereas the Republicans saw an overall swing of 11 minutes away from midnight.

If you accept that the party in office actually has any bearing on the global security situation, the data rather implies that right wing US governments make the world a safer place(!) Note however that with so few data points, you could well get the opposite result if you ran the same experiment again - maybe the reality is that, rather like the stock market, no one is really in control at all...

As for what made the scientists alter the clock each time, you can find that information at: https://thebulletin.org/timeline

Here's a chart showing the magnitude and direction of each change to the clock, again coded for the party of the incumbent president. I'm really surprised by this, but the data says that the net change under Democrats was an overall swing of 18 minutes towards midnight , whereas the Republicans saw an overall swing of 11 minutes away from midnight.

If you accept that the party in office actually has any bearing on the global security situation, the data rather implies that right wing US governments make the world a safer place(!) Note however that with so few data points, you could well get the opposite result if you ran the same experiment again - maybe the reality is that, rather like the stock market, no one is really in control at all...

As for what made the scientists alter the clock each time, you can find that information at: https://thebulletin.org/timeline

Yes interesting indeed but is there a time lag you are missing with this data? Could be that it takes a year or two for the change to occur after the election?