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.'"

Comments

Zeno

[Sebastopol]

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.

Re:Zeno

[Anonymous Coward]

They're just trying to stay relevant. We all forgot about them when the Cold War ended, and they crave attention again.

Re:Zeno

[93 Escort Wagon]

They're just trying to stay relevant. We all forgot about them when the Cold War ended, and they crave attention again.

You may have been joking/snarky/whatever, I'm not sure; but in all seriousness - I'd completely forgot about these guys and their "doomsday clock" until I saw this Slashdot story!

Re:Zeno

[timeOday]

So we can sit here and take turns throwing feces at the idea of a doomsday clock, or we could have an interesting discussion on whether it is possible to meet the world's future energy needs(?) without destroying the environment and/or nuclear proliferation.

Re:Zeno

[Baloroth]

The real problem is that the clock wasn't intended to represent things like climate change. The entire idea was to show how close we were to the world ending tomorrow. Climate change and the like won't end the world tomorrow. The clock really only even makes sense in the context of nuclear war or other dramatic world-changing events (Doomsday). It isn't called the "Doomcentury" clock for good reason.

Re:Zeno

[Curunir_wolf]

Maybe not ours but is life really defined by humans?

Yep, it really is. I mean, who will be around to define it after we're gone?

Re:Zeno

[SgtXaos]

Aside from a few million pounds (?) of it we have shot into space, all the metal that was here is still here. At some point, when the naturally available materials are simply too costly to mine, someone will figure out a good way to mine the landfills and dig those "gone" materials back up.

Eventually

[mpeskett]

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?

Re:Eventually

[ArsonSmith]

"A symbolic clock is as emotionally reassuring as a picture of oxygen to a drowning man." -Dr. Manhattan

Re:Eventually

[bughunter]

Well perhaps the clock metaphor isn't doing them service anymore if the majority of reactions are to the metaphor than the message.

Ultimately the point is, "we're going to pollute ourselves into the stone age." If that bit is being lost because the clock metaphor is becoming trite, then perhaps they should look for a new analogy.

This being slashdot, I think you know what I'm driving at...

Re:Eventually

[Hentes]

Which is exactly not the behaviour you would expect from a clock. The metaphor is flawed.