Buy gold because of uncertainty not Doomsday

It is two and a half minutes to midnight, the Clock is ticking, global danger looms. Wise public officials should act immediately, guiding humanity away from the brink. If they do not, wise citizens must step forward and lead the way. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 2017.

We hope you remembered to reset your clocks last week, not the timekeeping kind but the doomsday kind. And hopefully you’ve made a start on those bucket lists as apparently nuclear power, climate change, nationalist politics and technology have brought us one step closer to The End.

The Doomsday Clock, as kept and set by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, was moved forward last week by 30 seconds to two-and-a-half minutes to midnight. This is the closest the clock has come to 12am since 1953 when the Soviet Union tested its first hydrogen bomb, nine months after the US first tested their own version.

“The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and new technologies emerging in other domains.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The movement of the clock by half a minute comes as the group of scientists believe that in 2016, “the global security landscape darkened as the international community failed to come effectively to grips with humanity’s most pressing existential threats, nuclear weapons and climate change.”

The statement acknowledges that the outlook for climate change has not changed in the last year, but is concerned with the lack of action. It is also concerned about technology and ‘the knotty problems’ in some fields of technological innovation that may or may not present a threat to humanity. Back in 1947, they say “there was one technology with the potential to destroy the planet, and that was nuclear power” but now there are multiple threats.

However it is the US Presidential election and comments from President Trump that appear to have really forced the issue of moving the clock forward. The Bulletin points to the rise in ‘strident nationalism’ that brought about the US election result and Trump’s comments on nuclear weapons and climate change.

Whilst nuclear codes access and climate change haven’t concerned the President too much, this is not the first time apocalyptic language has been used since he came to power. Trump himself has enjoyed painting a picture of the ‘American carnage’ he sees across the United States today – he did so in his own inauguration speech.