New Delhi: Professor Stephen Hawking has warned that the “Doomsday” has come nearer for planet earth as a result of climate change. "Climate change is as great a threat to humankind as nuclear annihilation," he warned.
Speaking at a conference organized by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists at the Royal Society in London on Thursday, the Cambridge cosmologist said climate change stands alongside the use of nuclear weapons as one of the greatest threats posed to the future of the world.
"We stand on the precipice of a second nuclear age and a period of exceptional climate change, both of which could destroy the planet as we know it," he said.
As a result of this, the world's scientists have decided to move the minute hand of its "Doomsday Clock" forward to five minutes to midnight to reflect the increased dangers faced by the world. Scientists devised the "Doomsday Clock" in 1947 as a way of expressing to the public the risk of nuclear conflagration following the use of the atomic weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War.
Explaining the move, the board of directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said the threat of nuclear apocalypse was now almost matched by the environmental threats posed by climate change. "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," the board said in a statement.
"The scientists have a special responsibility, once again, to inform the public and to advise leaders about the perils that humanity faces," Prof Hawking said. "As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth."
"As citizens of the world, we have a duty to share that knowledge. We have a duty, as well, to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day, and to the perils we foresee if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change."
"We are here today to outline the results of the Bulletin's recent deliberations and to warn the public about the deteriorating state of world and planetary affairs by moving the hand of the clock," Professor Hawking said.
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