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

[Sponge Bath]

There's no reason we can't do both. I'm certain we can meet our energy needs, but maybe not our energy wants. Now where is that clock... *fling* *splat*

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

[ubrgeek]

Couldn't we use the feces to meet our energy needs?

Re:Zeno

[CapOblivious2010]

I seriously wonder what would happen if the US got nukes launched at it ... (snip)... We definitely wouldn't want to launch ours back to avoid MAD.

Do you know how MAD works? The whole point is that we are very public about being batshit crazy, and we definitely WOULD launch ours back. Lots of them. So launching a nuke at the US is just a slightly indirect way of committing mass suicide. MAD is insane logic, no question about it - but it's been a big part of keeping the US and USSR from using nukes on each other for over half a century. As insane as it might be, it works.

There's even a MAD argument AGAINST missile defense - as long as the US can't defeat incoming missiles, we're very unlikely to start a nuclear war. Likewise for Russia or whoever. But if anyone COULD defeat missiles, they wouldn't fear a nuclear war nearly as much, and they might even be tempted to start one. So a workable missile defense arguably makes the overall situation MORE dangerous, not less.

Now granted, MAD works better when your enemy is a large country who values their lives - it gets a bit iffy when your enemy is a small band of religious wackos who don't much care whether they're dead or alive, as long as they've made their point.

Re:Zeno

[ElectricTurtle]

You need to stop getting your 'science' from B movies. The reason that the Oxygen Catastrophe of the Siderian was able to change the atmosphere and the biosphere was that the cyanobacteria (over thousands of years) kept producing the gas as a product of their metabolism continuously and unopposed. The methane in ice/tundra is ultimately a mostly static value. Even if all of it were released instantly a) it wouldn't account for more than a fraction of a percent of the total atmosphere b) it would be subject to reabsorbtion by all the active environmental forces c) it would not increase further at any higher rate than is already established for lifeforms and geothermal activity that produce methane and d) there is no chance that it would catalyze some kind of methane-based/metabolizing/adapted lifeform because there would not be enough of it. (Among many other reasons.)

Holy shit people, The Day After Tomorrow is not a documentary, and shame on all the deluded twits modding you up.

Re:Zeno

[ancientt]

Spitballing here, so I freely acknowledge there are probably many issues I haven't thought through...

How about we sell lots of safe nuclear generators to Iran? I am interested in nuclear power because it has a tremendous potential for meeting energy demands, but I also acknowledge that creating safe nuclear plants that aren't a precursor to nuclear weapons requires a high level of technical expertise. The US and China and other highly developed countries have the expertise but face a lot of public opinion inertia. Maybe we should try to produce the generators in a box (google Hyperion) and sell them to Iran with built in safety precautions. Alternatively, set up a treaty to develop thorium reactors there, which I believe are hard or impossible to weaponize.

Either way, we could help them meet their energy goals while protecting the global interest of preventing them from developing weapons. As a side effect, we would get to use the pro-nuclear government there as a safety proving ground for new technologies. They want to take the risks and we need to show that the new technologies are safe and feasible, so we have coinciding interest, which can make a strong bond for peaceful trade.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

"Today, the Doomsday Clock moved from 11:59:59.98 to 11:59:59.99, signaling that once again, scientists have proved that there are no simple metaphors that can't be abused beyond the point of utility."

Re:Eventually

[ArsonSmith]

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

Re:Eventually

[Chuq]

You are aware that sometimes the clock moves AWAY from midnight?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Doomsday_Clock_graph.svg

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.

Re:Eventually

[djmurdoch]

Re Fukushima: If you read the statement you'd see that they find the problem arising from Fukushima is that it caused a reduction in the amount of nuclear power being used, leading to increased reliance on burning fossil fuels.

They'd like safer reactor designs, so more people use nuclear power.

So what's that about integrity? You complain about them, without reading what they wrote?

so close!

[quaketripp]

A few more minutes and we can start playing "2 minutes to midnight" by Iron Maiden!

Safe for a century and a half

[nman64]

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.

Re:Safe for a century and a half

[syousef]

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.

Personally I find it very alarming that a group of nuclear scientists can't even make a clock that doesn't work at a consistent rate. Perhaps what they need is to invent an atomic clock ;-)

Oblig.

[Wraithlyn]

The whole point of a doomsday clock... is LOST if you keep it a secret!

WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL THE WORLD, EH?