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

Arbitrary?

[Rhesusmonkey]

Is there some equation by which this is determined or is this another abstact measure of FUD that we could just as easily set to "Red" as 7 till midnight?

Re:Arbitrary?

[Eivind]

You are absolutely correct.

The *length* of the meter is arbitrary. Same for the length of the second and most other basic units in the metric system.

What is, however, *not* arbitrary, and where the large win lies is in making the derived units straigthforward combinations of the basic units, and the different scale units factors of 10^x larger/smaller.

There's an exception for time. The larger units of time aren't 10^x larger than the smallest one. 60,60,24,7,365.24 is a mess. The latter can't be helped: There really *are* 365.24 (or thereabouts) days in a year. But we could've split the day a lot more sensibly than 24/60/60. For example we could have 10 seconds to the minute, 10 minutes to the hour, 10 hours to the day. That'd be kinda disruptive, but it would simplify some stuff further. So, a foot makes exactly as much sense as a basic unit of length as a meter. Agreed.

However, once we've set the basic units, the connections are extremely straigthforward:

If I travel 1 meter in 1 second I travel at 1m/s, if I used a second to get to this speed I accelerated at 1m/s^2. If I weigh 1kg, then this required a force of 1N. If this force 1N work over a distance of 1m, it does 1J of work. If that was done in 1s then the power was 1W. If this was provided by electricity, then that is for example 1V and 1A. 1A means 1C electrons pro 1s flows trough the conductor. Now you do that, using only imperial units. :-) How many hogheads *are* there to a fluid-oz anyway ?

Re:Arbitrary?

[Tteddo]

One meter is one millionth of the distance from the equator to the pole.

Re:Arbitrary?

[dodongo]

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.

Are teachers even allowed to teach anymore? And if they aren't teaching critical thought, we're all screwed, Gore film or no.

Show the kids this film. Show them the best work we know of from people whose heads are up their asses, saying there is no such thing as global warming, global warming isn't bad, and / or it certainly isn't being caused by humans or human activities. Have them write a paper analyzing one or both arguments. Tada!

There's a huge difference between presenting differing opinions and asking people to evaluate them versus indoctrinating kids with vanilla facts and expecting they'll somehow evolve the ability to think critically on their own. What a shitty policy. Unbiased does not mean good, and biased does not mean bad. But only if you know how to think about it, rather than assuming everything you hear in an instructional setting is designed for rote memorization.

Throw those school board bums out.

Hyperbole?

[Gothmolly]

So you have 12 hours to work with, and you start off at 17 minutes to midnight? Seems like a case of hyperbole to me - in that scale, the world is ALWAYS about to blow up in a nuclear war, so it quickly loses its impact.

It's like holding the stupid "threat level" at yellow or orange for a long amount of time, eventually people accept it and begin to ignore it.

Re:Hyperbole?

[Captain Splendid]

That's kinda the point, when we have enough nukes floating around to blow up the planet several times over.

Re:Hyperbole?

[Andrew Aguecheek]

In TFA it does specifically state that "It uses the analogy of the human race being at a time that is a "few minutes to midnight," They have, at best, sixty minutes to work with, butin common parlance you tend to say "past" instead of "to" before half past the hour and so it could probably be argued that half past eleven would mean "no chance whatsoever," though they would most likely use eleven o'clock because they could symbolically move the hour hand.

Re:Hyperbole?

[The One and Only]

It's kind of like illustrating the age of the planet as 12 hours and the appearence of humanity and civilization as the last minute/second whatever...

Except without any basis in mathematical fact or measured reality.

Re:Hyperbole?

[A beautiful mind]

Please note, that I used the word metaphore. In this, the clock is similar to a work of art, it has meaning. It calls attention to an important issue by using a metaphore and you're asking where is the mathematical fact or measured reality in it?

The problem it points to does have mathematical facts and is consistent with reality aka it exists. It is a mathematical facts that governments around the world have enough nukes that it can display all civilisation on earth and potentially wipe out the human race. It is a mathematical fact that more and more governments are capable of using nuclear weapons. It is part of reality that those who aquired nukes recently are not the sanest people around, like Kim Il - if we can believe the reports about the test they carried out which I'm not sure I do.

Re:Hyperbole?

[Dun Malg]

Please note, that I used the word metaphore. In this, the clock is similar to a work of art, it has meaning. It might be metaphor, but since it's scientists setting the time on a clock without any mathematical basis, it also counts as hyperbole, FUD, and propaganda. They are using the trappings of science to make hay out of their personal political beliefs.

Re:Hyperbole?

[gsn]

That most people live their daily lives blissfully ignorant of the dangers of nuclear weapons is entirely irrelevant. I don't think most people have a sense of scale for what a nuclear weapon can do. Therefore, the risk of a nuclear war is meaningless to them. Worse, I've heard and met some people who believe it won't be any worse than a conventional war, and are quite happy saying nuke Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and while you are at it, N. Korea. Sure most people ignore risks and only react after something happens. The trouble with a doomsday scale nuclear war is there isn't an after. Perhaps if you kept that in mind it wouldn't lose so much of its impact.

Re:Hyperbole?

[letxa2000]

The point is that it's a bunch of activist scientists changing the purpose of the clock so they can continue to opin on the political situation of the planet. What that has to do with science (other than political science) is beyond me.

Not Climate Threats directly

[Anonymous Coward]

new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks.

These guys are not claiming doomsday from climate change.

And despite the increase of proliferation and individual threats, the global doomsday we legitimately feared in the 80's is long gone.

I think proliferation in the Middle East will bring some long needed maturity to those ridiculous tribal governments or be self-limiting. Bad for some cities, but not global conflict. India-Pakistan nukes may have even calmed that situation. Mutual destruction pacts might actually work.

Re:Not Climate Threats directly

[NeutronCowboy]

Mutually Assured Destruction works if both people in control of the Big Red Button are semi-sane, understand the consequences of pushing that button and are interested in self-preservation, or at least the preservation of a good chunk of their people.

However, I can say without a doubt that there are plenty of people who do not have any of these characteristics, including Americans. MAD is far too unstable a concept to be institutionalized. I'd much rather have no nukes than be the only one to have them. It simply won't stay in the latter state for very long.

Re:Not Climate Threats directly

[NeutronCowboy]

Mmhh.... let me rephrase that for clarity.

However, I can say without a doubt that there are plenty of people who do not have any of these characteristics, including many Americans.

There, better.

Yes, Kennedy and Khrushchev did very well not to go down the hardline path. But we won't get lucky every time.

Re:Not Climate Threats directly

[halivar]

I suppose one president is luck; but nine presidents is a pattern. We had national leaders that ranged from right-wing TFH's to bleeding heart liberals, and nine out of nine presidents (including Reagan, ridiculed in his own time for being a nuke-loving war-monger ["Land of Confusion", I loved that video]) did not press the button. Ditto for the Soviet Union. I don't believe the relative calm of the Cold War was a fluke; MAD was a diplomatic strategy designed to give us an excuse not to go to war in circumstances where war would otherwise be inevitable (or even as many post-WW2 military figures argued, necessary).

I think the world is less safe, now that no one is looking down the long barrel of an ICBM. There is now less inhibition to starting war, and fewer repercussions.

Re:strike 12 already...

[HappySqurriel]

I don't know ...

Lately I've been looking into the history of man kind and it seems like at any point in time people were certain that the end of the world was only a generation or two away.

I think it is about time everyone started to ignore anyone who claimed the world was about to end and listened to more rational voices.

One Bomb is Not "Doomsday"

[timeOday]

A nuke or two going off in the US would be terrible. But let's be glad we don't face annihilation today like we did during the cold war. Think about it, at the time there was a real risk of humanity being set back a thousand years, or according to some theories even disappearing. Terrorism is nothing next to that. They have nothing like the numbers of weapons or delivery systems to do what we or the Russians could do. India and Pakistan doesn't have them, and N. Korea doesn't have them. People just aren't comfortable without a certain amount of upset, and they enlarge or shrink whatever troubles they face to fill that void.

Re:One Bomb is Not "Doomsday"

[Anonymous Coward]

A nuke or two going off in the US would be terrible. But let's be glad we don't face annihilation today like we did during the cold war.

In the last few weeks Russia extorted Europe by threatening to cut off energy supplies. There is quite a bit of unease that the primary gas supplier to Europe is being run like a crime syndicate.

Russia and Iran are very close allies. They would not tolerate an American offensive in that country.

China also has nukes, lots of them in fact. Our relationship with them is friendly but strained but there are numerous ways it could go south quickly.

And meanwhile all three countries still have hundreds of missles pointed at each other's cities. Missles and guidance/detection systems that are generally 80's tech, and may or may not be properly maintained and updated. Remember the times we've some closest to nuclear annihilation has not been a military standoff, but by computer error.

The situation certainly is not the same as it was during the height of the cold war but we're far from being out of the woods. A full-scale nuclear exchange is still very possible.

Do the submitters even RTFA???

[laughingcoyote]

From the summary...

It is not revealed in which direction the hands of the clock will be moved...

From TFA...

The minute hand of the Doomsday Clock will be moved closer to midnight on January 17 (emphasis added).

Re:It's Time

[Atomic6]

You're forgetting about the people that either: believe their god will save them from destruction; or just plain don't care if they die. Terrorist and insane heads of states (Ahmadinejad?), for example.

Re:It's Time

[Anonymous Coward]

How is Bush's doctorine of "preemptive" "defense" any different from a mad man?

Preemption is not a defense, it is an OFFENSE, pure and simple. They are the agressor.

Re:Hyperbole? Define "blow up the planet"

[Dilaudid]

Yes. Always the same shit from the environmentalists - "humans going to blow up the planet". Greenpeace actually said, in one of their 90s pamphlets "humans about to destroy all life on earth"... Idiots. We may be able to take care of small flightless birds, we may be pretty good at wiping out most of the fish stocks, but humans could never destroy life on earth.

It's kind of instructive to think what we would have to do - start with the hard to reach - we need to kill all the life around the "smokers" at the bottom of the ocean, at the same time as carpet bombing the earth with nukes - but you've really got to cook every square mile of the entire planet. That means raising the temperature above boiling point (there's life at temperatures everywhere up to there) for long enough to kill every spore, bacterium. The important thing to bear in mind is that to kill life you have to kill every single bacterium, because one bacterium can mutate. In short it's not going to happen, it's probably technically infeasible, and no one wants to do it (not even George Bush)

I like to think this sums up two things - one the horrible grandiosity of environmental pressure groups - starting with their assumption that humans are powerful enough to do something that is virtually impossible, then assuming that they are more important than the people that can do this, that they are only people who understand the big picture. The other is that they know fuck all about any actual science (i.e. physics, chemistry, microbiology), and they don't seem to care to learn more.

Real climate scientists I salute - they do something virtually impossible. Environmental politicians (for that is what Greenpeace, and this crowd are) are just republicans who found a different issue first. Look at Al Gore - when he's not trying to ban music with obscene lyrics (PMRC) he's saving the environment with glossy hollywood films. Bless.

I remember the 80s. This doomsday clock sucks.

[arcade]

I only remember the 80s.

I remember, vividly, how my parents thought me that it was a cold war between the US and the Soviet Union.

I remember the retorics. I remember the fear. I remember how I was told that we could be destroyed by nuclear weapons.

I remember MAD.

I was born in 1979.

People born just 5 or 6 years later than me - do not remember this. They have never experienced the cold war. They can't remember it. They can't even understand the doomsday clock, the fear, the MAD uncertainty.

I was 10 years old. I helped chop the Berlin wall down. Physically.

People, just 5 years younger than me - don't understand what it was all about. They don't remember. .. and I'm still young.

Now, this article is about the doomsday clock moving forward. From 17 minutes to midnight. Heh .. I don't have words for the stupidity. The world is relatively safe. The major disaster and major fear we have is from islamic terrorists sending a couple of planes into a building or two. A BUILDING OR TWO! THATS IT! Eighteen years ago we were afraid that New York as a whole would be anhilated in a few minutes. ALL of it. Not just a building or two on manhattan.

And these guys want to move the hands forward on a clock of global doom. Right.

It was right in the 80s. It's not right anymore. Move it backwards three or four hours, and it might be right. This way - it's just ridiculous.

Re:I remember the 80s. This doomsday clock sucks.

[Leftist Troll]

Heh .. I don't have words for the stupidity. The world is relatively safe. The major disaster and major fear we have is from islamic terrorists sending a couple of planes into a building or two. A BUILDING OR TWO! THATS IT! Eighteen years ago we were afraid that New York as a whole would be anhilated in a few minutes. ALL of it. Not just a building or two on manhattan.

People living in Tokyo or Tehran might not share your sentiment.

Re:Related to troop increase in Iraq?

[ChameleonDave]

The threat starts with EU businesses with no ethics selling parts and plans for nuclear reactors to extremist nations in the name of profit.

So EU companies have been selling power station parts and plans to the USA? I hadn't heard of that. I don't see how it increases America's threat to world peace.

When someone sponsors those who say they hate you and have the goal of seeing your nation wiped out you have to take seriously the fact that nuclear weapons are one of the best ways to accomplish that goal. I suppose so. By "take seriously" you mean "invade", right? In that case you are arguing for many countries to invade the US.

Or are you a supporter of state sponsored Terrorism as long as it is against the "agressors" of the United States?

Terrorism? I suppose you mean guerrilla warfare. Yeah, it's a good thing when waged against an aggressor; in that case it is called resistance. For example, if the USA's neighbours invaded, all the gun-nuts would join resistance militias and I'd support them in that. In the same way, I approve of the French resistance during the Nazi occupation, and the current Iraqi resistance against US occupation. Indian resistance against the British empire is another one I admire, in particular their pacifist resistance, though armed Indian resistance fighters were also heroes.

I don't really see the significance of the "state-sponsored" part. The French resistance was largely based in London, but I don't see that as affecting their legitimacy positively or negatively.

Re:Hyperbole? Define "blow up the planet"

[operagost]

it's safe to say that when environmentalists say we are going to end the planet they mean it in the context of humankind.

Environmentalists are not and never have been interested in helping mankind. They are simply an alliance between the ivory-tower preservationists and the Gaia-theory radicals who would frankly prefer that the earth swallow up all the filthy parasite humans (except them and their nature-worshipping friends, of course) and spit out the bones.

Conservationists are the ones who are truly concerned about preserving natural resources for future generations, and appropriately restoring and maintaining balance in the ecosystem.

Re:Hyperbole? Define "blow up the planet"

[7Prime]

Your post very-much confuses me. Who cares if they are a Teddy Rosevelt style preservationist, who's ultimate goal is preserving the world so that HUMANS can enjoy it, or a spiritual conservationist who believes it's our moral duty to preserve the world for its own sake... ultimately their goals are the same. The term "envirnomentalist" is an umbrella term for all of the above, and it seems like you've pigieon-holed it to a group of almost non-existant radicals.

Very very few environmentalists have any interest in removing the human species from this planet... but drawing attention to our viral-like properties is a dramatic, and motivating analogy. Sure, it might be a bit mellodramatic, but if it gets people's attention, and gets people thinking about how to do better for the future of this world and ourselves, I'm not going to complain.