Doomsday Clock To Advance

Dik Zak writes "Many news sites are reporting that the magazine Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists intends to move the hands of the Doomsday Clock on Wednesday 17 January. The clock was started at seven minutes to midnight during the Cold War and has been moved forward or back at intervals, depending on the state of the world and the prospects for nuclear war. Midnight represents destruction by nuclear war. It is not revealed in which direction the hands of the clock will be moved, but it should be safe to assume that they will move closer to midnight: the magazine cites 'worsening nuclear [and] climate threats.' The clock stood at two minutes to midnight when both the United States and the Soviet Union tested nuclear weapons in 1953. The farthest away from midnight it ever got was 17 minutes, in 1991 when both superpowers signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. It currently stands at seven minutes to midnight."

Comments

Re:Arbitrary?

[WED Fan]

A schoolboard rules that global warming is a "mere" scientific theory.

Actually, I live in the Seattle area:

What they ruled on was that it was a scientific theory with more than one side to the story and that "An Inconvenient Truth" was not a dispassionate, non-partisan, objective look at the science involved. They were also concerned that none of the producers and Al Gore were scientists, and that showing it in a class without context would be a disservice to students.

It was widely misreported, probably helped by the fact that the most vocal opponent to the film being shown is a nut-job zealot parent, and the fact that Seattle PeePee, uh, P-I ran an editorial as news and the fact that local right-wing radio really went ape-shit. But, that doesn't mean we have to get the reporting wrong here. Wait, this is /., I'm sorry, go about your business.