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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!
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.
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.
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!
Technology is not the issue, its those who get in the way is where the problem is.
Yes quite, but not in the way you suggest.
The issue is people like you spouting this sort of claptrap until the point comes where people are shouting "where's my damn jetpack?!" instead of getting some real work done to improve our species' lot.
When the clock strikes midnight and nothing happens....
Fucking Carnot cycle, how does it work?
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
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.
This is probably one of the most irrelevant groups around.
I vote for MADD. They got the drinking limit lowered to the point where talking on a phone is less safe than driving drunk, and are still out there, pushing hard like if they declared victory, everyone would drink to that, then drive home. SADD is sadly more relevant, as they are more a social organization than PAC bent on absolute Prohibition (apparently nobody told them that was tried before).
Learn to love Alaska
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
Iran more then north korea
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
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.
Iron Maiden pops to mind every time I hear about the doomsday clock. *
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!
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??
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
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
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.
Get a clue, pal. It takes at least 50% (and usually more like 100% on industrial scale) more energy to split water than you get back by burning the product gases. There are thus n no "water powered cars", just scams. And chumps and suckers who believe them, such as you.
There is "free energy" in the world, it comes from the Sun. The biosphere has been running off of it for billions of years. But until we perfect our biological engineering skills, we'll be needing more concentrated energy sources that cost money to build and to feed.
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;
Sure you don't want to focus on an even smaller piece of the puzzle, like maybe the mount screw used to mount the fuel cell inside the car?
Perhaps you need to do more searching on "free energy", "zero point energy", "new energy" devices?
and the Carnot cycle... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle
"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.