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The Doomsday Clock Is Moved Closer To Midnight
Harperdog writes "The Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock from 6 minutes to midnight to 5 minutes to midnight. The Board deliberated on the decision and came to the conclusion based on a variety of events: failure on climate policy, Fukushima, nuclear proliferation, etc. This article is a good explanation of the policy decision. Lawrence Krauss said, 'As we see it, the major challenge at the heart of humanity's survival in the 21st century is how to meet energy needs for economic growth in developing and industrial countries without further damaging the climate, exposing people to loss of health and community, and without risking further spread of nuclear weapons, and in fact setting the stage for global reductions.'"
This is so stupid. I'm a lefty eco groovy person, but this is just pathetic. Almost as sad as Heston's "From my cold dead hands" battlecry.
It just puts emphasis on the moonbats on the left, and ammo for Faux News, rather than addressing the issues in a non sensationalist way.
Sigh.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Pixie dust.
Deleted
We have a doomsday clock.
Sooner or later they're going to box themselves into a corner - they only have so many discrete 1-minute steps they can take before they find that the world is more fucked up than they thought possible, but somehow still carrying on.
Then what? Leave it at 1-minute to midnight, or edge ever closer in smaller and smaller increments?
This is purely a fear mongering political protest.
A few more minutes and we can start playing "2 minutes to midnight" by Iron Maiden!
This is probably one of the most irrelevant groups around. Why can't people ever accept that the purpose of their group has been fulfilled, and now it's time to move on?
Or are we all worried about OMGIRANNUKESWTFPWNEDBBQ?
The US wants to be able to attack any place on earth within 60min. It wants to be able to prevent any other country from retailiation. Space and air supremacy is the stated policy of the USA, basically world domination.
Why doesn't that figure on the clock? Oh, right.
Survivor party at my house, ladies! Clothing is optional, but frowned upon.
Yeah yeah right right.
Nice way to distract everyone from SOPA isn't it?
is that GMT, UT, EST or what?
'As we see it, the major challenge at the heart of humanity's survival in the 21st century is how to meet energy needs for economic growth in developing and industrial countries without further damaging the climate, exposing people to loss of health and community, and without risking further spread of nuclear weapons, and in fact setting the stage for global reductions.'
I've held a very similar opinion for many, many years (as have many others, I'm certain). After reading this quote, I had two immediate reactions, one hopeful and one cynical:
1. I'd like to think that safe, clean fusion power is just around the corner. I've become less convinced of this over the years but am still holding out hope. Can anything else provide the power levels and the energy densities required to sustain a technological urban society's advancement on the Kardashev scale?
2. And we wonder where all the interstellar civilizations are. All signs are pointing to a factor in the Drake Equation that minimizes the number of civilizations that last long enough to achieve starfaring status. Sadly, it appears more and more that this factor approaches zero...
I can see the fnords!
I was going to ask:
How is this "News for nerds - stuff that matters?"
But it looks like /. dropped that tagline. And a good thing, too, since this is just crap.
I have it on authority, that next year's doomsday criteria will include sasquatch sightings.
They forgot to mention the coming war with Iran. Like it or not, for reason or without, it is coming.
Sounds like someone needs their pet social experiment to be funded.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
But the problems is with those elitist who want to control everything.
Free energy devices have been designed and tested in many labs around the world, but teh power these devices produce cannot be metered and as such the powers that be, keep it suppressed. And there is also fuel cell technology and even again an inventor who has produced a car that runs totally off water (HHO) and this on to9p of adding a fuel cell to existing cars and trucks (even one police department has converted all their cars to be supplemented with fuel cells for a 40% mpg increase.
Technology is not the issue, its those who get in the way is where the problem is.
So, a doomsday clock that started at 11:53 in 1947 is now at 11:55... based upon that rate of advancement (2 minutes per 65 years, obviously ignoring any other adjustments), we should be safe for over a century and a half. I've heard far more alarming predictions than that. Nothing to see here.
We managed not to incinerate ourselves (yet) in nuclear fire, but we sure do seem to be doing a heck of a job of destroying the ecosystem that we are a part of, soiling our nests, devouring our resources like locust on steroids, and generally acting with all the foresight of bacteria in a sealed Petri dish.
Check your premises.
I was unaware that the clock was used for anything other than how close we were to nuclear war.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
When nuclear war IS happening, are one of these guys gonna run to the doom clock and push the hand to midnight?
When the clock strikes midnight and nothing happens....
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors. There, I solved the worlds energy problems. Cheap, virtually un-exhaustible resources with virtually no pollution obtainable within a decade's time. It just needs funding and restrictions lifted. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4
If they had sex with a supermodel they'd be complaining that it ruined their sex life forever.
Gloom and frickin doom. I wish they'd stuff that stupid clock where the sun don't shine. I'm sick of all this fear mongering. Why don't they do something to help people for once?
There, I feel better now.
Normally I ascribe all life to intelligent design, but in your case I'll make an exception.
Fukushima might have been a disaster, but it's not something that can cause the end of the world. What's the point in including it?
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
There is nothing scientific about this clock, and most scientists would surely admit it. It is political and is meant to sway public opinion. So what we have here are either a) fake scientists, b) real scientists shooting themselves in the foot, or c) politicians.
The whole point of the scientific method is to be grounded on evidence and be void of any political, social, or even personal biases. I have nothing against this silly clock, but as long as science lends its name to garbage such as this, science will always have a hard time in politics claiming itself to be scientific.
When this article makes the rounds on Associated Press, it should really help disperse the 2012 apocalypse bullshit.
Well that is 07:55am here in England...
And here we see a prime example of Poe's law in action.
I only read the summary, but shouldn't Fukushima be a reason to move it back from midnight, not closer to? It's shut down and being dismantled, it's not going to meltdown or blow up now.
Prior to the earthquake/tsunami or during the shutdown phase it would have been a valid reason, but not now.
*At the sound of the tone, the time will be... >krrckk..... *
And static followed...
The point, children, is that shootin' wars arise from failing to solve our problems in smart useful eco-friendly ways - so get off thy bum and get it done.
The whole point of a doomsday clock... is LOST if you keep it a secret!
WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL THE WORLD, EH?
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Make me think the world is more doomed than the clock.
It was two minutes to midnight before your dumb asses were born.
The finger on the doomsday button has been moments from being pushed several times.
Iran more then north korea
This is just more Left Progressive Chicken Little Garbage, I would rather listen to Steve Hawking, at one word/minute than these clowns 'Atomic Scientists' boloney!
Reasons:
a) One large US army in Iraq
b) One large US army in Afghanistan
c) Elections coming close
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
In 1950 our world population was 2.5 billion - it's now past 7 billion. A European group and the University of WIsconsin have a new human transmittable bird flu virus. Somehow I fear that may not be the last biological terror!
With Pakistan shuffling their nukes around in un-armoured minimally guarded vans, North Korea continuing to develop its nuclear facilities and Iran apparently hell bent on getting the bomb I'm more surprised they didn't move the needle sooner.
Not quite as stupid as pretending proliferation does not matter on the eve of a radical theocracy acquiring the technology. On top of that there's still Burma ( Myanmar) and other small satrapies working on this same matter. MAD works as long as the tech is so expensive that only the biggest can acquire it. This very reason makes its use unlikely, since the biggest want to retain what they have. Make it cheap enough and it will be used by some desperate authoritarian twat like Guaddafi or Assad when they're pressed. This much is obvious to those who lived during the cold war; for all their authoritarian evil, the big five were more stable.
I love that they lead with environmentalism (also known as chicken little syndrome) and nuclear power plants (hahahahahahaha, yeah, those will kill us with all that cheap, clean abundant electrical power) as opposed to an unstable middle east and a moron in the White House whose partying his way through Iran becoming one of the biggest threats to peace the world has ever known.
I guess I can safely throw them on the pile with the Nobel price and the MSM (0% credibility)
When we're at 12 attoseconds to midnight, wake me up.
Iron Maiden pops to mind every time I hear about the doomsday clock. *
When liberty advances, the clock approaches midnight. When tyranny advances, the clock receeds. Solution: Let tyranny take over and then there will be world peace (of the gulag) and no more clock.
The educated, enlightened, and the media shall then rejoice for fifteen minutes before they are herded up for the firing squad.
Prove otherwise.
==//==
Then they'll say, "You can't say we didn't warn you!" Oh but wait, they won't be here to gloat, will they?
ANY (analog) clock with stopped hands is right twice a day!
As a guy that sat in the Supervisors chair of Mk88Mod1 Trident Fleet Ballistic Missile System I can tell you that first launch is only 7 minutes from "Man Battle Stations Missile for Strategic Launch" over the 1MC. It even less if you pre-stage the launch personnel... 4 minutes to spin up the IMUs 45 seconds DENOTE to pop the battery and let the charge level off, and 15 seconds PREPARE for last second NAVDATA update.
Add in a little flight time if you like... but as soon as I hear "Secure from Battle Stations Missile" I'm going back to the rack.
Scientists may know HOW to put the bomb on the pitchers mound*... but have little clue as to WHY you want to put there in the first place.
*The accuracy of the Trident I Missile is said to be able to hit the pitchers mound in a baseball field... whereas the older C-3 Poseidon Missile would get you 'somewhere' in the stadium.
I just wanna know, after we blow ourselves to kingdom come and hideously irradiate the planet and cook it with greenhouse gases and stuff...
Who's gonna wind the Doomsday clock??
It seems that nothing will make these people happier than if the whole world goes up in smoke. It is time we grow up. The world hasn't been this safe since before WW1. Terrorism has always been a threat and in terms of safety, has not been nearly as dangerous as ANY of the wars that have been and are fought. We are going to be here for a long time, even though politicians ignore the environment (while pretending they're not) and go overboard to enrich themselves and their buddies.
I don't have the time, interest and energy to look this up, but it would be interesting to know who sponsors these clowns.
With all the hidden development in Middle East, deliberately kept away from your U.S. pork ears by your corporate mess-media (sic)...
The doomsday clock could be rolled back. Here's how.
When the next bank that fails,shoot everyone who worked there, rinse repeat. Why is Corzine walking free? Why are 38,000 farmers and cattlemen hanging in limbo? Where is the 1.2 Billion? Where is Eric Holder and the DOJ? Still harrasing gibson guitars? This is the reason the doomsday clock moves forward.
You stupid democrat vs republican idiots are stuck in groupthink. This is a Globalist war on the small guy, and they "the globalists" need to meet their makers.
Just look at this nonsense with the banks, the statute of limitations is running out. We have no rights, a DHS, a patriot act and all this NDAA and still these banksters are walking free. It doesn't matter D or V, it's if they have globalist connections.
It's both the Officials (who break their oath and allow this crap to continue) and the banksters that need to have their doomsday clocks reach midnight.
Or else it will be You groupthink democrats and republicans who will be the ones who see blood in the streets when the FEMA camps go live.
You better wake up.
Since they have the second largest or largest reserves of fossil fuels in the world, what does the USA need nuclear power for?
PS the NATO inspectors WANTED the power to investigate for WMDs in Iraq, but the USA vetoed the powers to NATO because it didn't exclude the USA factories from being shock inspected for WMD production. Did you know that?
Makes you wonder.
Just to recap, "MAD" stands for "Mutually Assured Destruction." If the enemy is a small band of religious wackos they can't get enough nukes to destroy a major country. One city, sure; ten cities, maybe; destroy the country, no way. So they can do some damage but not destroy their target. Likewise they are hard to locate and easy to disperse. You'd be surprised how useless nukes are against a moving enemy whom you can't locate to within a few miles' radius. So the whole MAD strategy becomes irrelevant. Neither side can destroy the other but they can nuke each other ... maybe multiple times. This is why nuclear proliferation is scary: it changes the stable MAD scenario to an unstable one where there is no deterrent to small-scale nuclear exchange.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Careening from crisis to crisis does not seem like something that works. It has not crashed yet, but it will. Disarmament is what works.
I was curious about this so I listened to the press conference. They are saying that Fukushima shows that the global nuclear power industry is vulnerable to the worst run nuclear plants. Basically they are afraid that Fukushima will slow the growth of nuclear power which they (mistakenly) think would help with global warming. http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center%2FLibrary%2FE09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly
the subject title says it all.
TWO! MINUTES! to miiiiiidniiiiight
IYDKGI (if you don't know, google it)
Bullshit meter has gone through the roof!
I don't mind them setting it forward for various reasons but if we're to pretend it has any relation to reality then they need to set the clock WAY back before they start moving it forward.
We are not that close to global thermonuclear war. We're just not. Maybe we'll have a little engagement with Iran... maybe they'll even pop a SINGLE nuke off and we'll respond by annihilating them. But that isn't the doomsday clock. It has to be global war for it to be doomsday and Iran doesn't have that power.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Again, who says climate change is catastrophic? More people die due to cold weather than warm weather. More polar bears die due to hunting than drown at sea. The reactionist, look at me groups need to get a grip and read "Cool It" by Bjorn Lomborg.
Get your Kicks on Route 66
The only Doomsday in our future is if Obama serves another term.
As soon as doomsday happens, everyone is going to be so distracted that nobody will advance the clock from 11:59:59.
Of course, the "Doomsday Clock" is completely meaningless, based as it is on a few peoples' opinions, it does have a use. When hand-waving and foot stomping don't convince people to do what you think they should do, try panicking them.
I seriously wonder what would happen if the US got nukes launched at it though
Buy my book coming out on Amazon next month to find out. (Hint:most countries in South America become Super Powers)
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
To some extent, the answer is yes. I doubt we'd have many poo-powered data-centers, but things (stoves, heaters, etc) that would use natural gas can use methane-burners:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16203507
There are tests in using treated sewage for biofuel in vehicles or small power plants
http://futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/11/7349762-poop-fuels-hydrogen-cars
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5335635/ns/us_news-environment/t/poop-power-sewage-turned-electricity/
IMHO, it makes sense. More people = more energy needs = more waste. If we can find a way to reconstitute our waste into something useful, then the two scale together somewhat usefully.
Throughout history, the most accurate depiction of human civilization is that of a man running for his life, with a pack of ravening wolves snapping at his heels. So; what else is new?
Regards;
"As we see it, the major challenge at the heart of humanity's survival in the 21st century is how to meet energy needs for economic growth in developing and industrial countries without further damaging the climate, exposing people to loss of health and community, and without risking further spread of nuclear weapons, and in fact setting the stage for global reductions."
As my sig suggests, there may be something more deeply important psychologically underlying that challenge: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.