Doomsday Clock edges toward midnight
 

Doomsday Clock edges toward midnight
Scientists add global warming to nuclear fears

By Will Dunham, Reuters | January 18, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The scientists who mind the Doomsday Clock moved it two minutes closer to midnight yesterday -- symbolizing the annihilation of civilization and adding the perils of global warming for the first time.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which created the Doomsday Clock in 1947 to warn the world of the dangers of nuclear weapons, advanced the clock to five minutes before midnight. It was the first adjustment of the clock since 2002.

"We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age," the bulletin's board of directors said in a statement.

They cited North Korea's first nuclear test, Iran's nuclear ambitions, US flirtation with "bunker buster" nuclear bombs, the continued presence of 26,000 American and Russian nuclear weapons, and inadequate security for nuclear materials.

But the scientists also said destruction of human habitats wreaked by climate change brought on by human activities is a growing danger. "Global warming poses a dire threat to human civilization that is second only to nuclear weapons," they said.

The announcement was made in news conferences in London and Washington.

"We foresee great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change," theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge, a member of the bulletin's board of sponsors, told London reporters.

Cambridge astrophysicist Martin Rees added that while the Cold War between nuclear-armed superpowers is over, the world is closer than ever to having nuclear bombs used in a localized war or by terrorists in a city center.

"A global village will have its village idiots," Rees said.

Kennette Benedict, the bulletin's executive director, dismissed the notion that by touting the threat posed by global warming, the scientists had diluted their message about the nuclear peril.

Many scientists predict dire consequences from global warming, including higher sea levels that over time could swamp coastal regions, as well as more severe storms and worse wildfires.

The bulletin's scientists moved the clock two minutes forward in 2002, to seven minutes until midnight, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The bulletin was founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had worked on developing the first nuclear bomb, and it is now overseen by some of the world's most prominent scientists.

The bulletin created the clock in 1947, two years after the United States ushered in the nuclear age by dropping atomic bombs on two Japanese cities at the end of World War II, to symbolize the nuclear dangers confronting the world.

It now stands at the closest to midnight since 1984, when it was three minutes to midnight amid a deepening Cold War.

It has been adjusted 18 times in 60 years. It was set as close as two minutes before midnight in 1953 after the United States and Soviet Union tested hydrogen bombs, and as far as 17 minutes before midnight in 1991 at the Cold War's end.

What does this doomsday clock actually entail?

I don't get it, it could at least be in hours and minutes. I heard the story before, but couldn't grasp what it actually meant.

I'm going to sing the doom song! Doom doom doom doom doom doom...

Not much of a warning... I didn't even know there was a Doomsday Clock until I read a topic about this very article (or one just like it) on another message board.

Shall we bring out the champagne and noisemakers and count down to zero?

*pop*

Vashe zdorovie!

On a more serious note, people should start taking the neccessary steps to keeping this world "healthy." People just don't get it. They need something horrible to happen in order for them to get motivated to take a stand.

freaking morons.... morons morons morons.... first... 50 -75 megatons of nuclear weapons blasts (far FAR more than india, china, north korea and pakistan (and terrorists) could ever produce would only drop the global temps by 2-3 degrees... yes that would cause major headaches, but still.... and at any rate .... Bunker busters are NOT nuclear weapons, freaking morons!!!! They're made from the shells of DISARMED nuclear ICBM missiles.... AKA recycling the shell of the rocket part of it and making it into a bomb....

FYI global warming is a moot point, the world changes temp. more often than people realize... and it has natural cycles.... Becides, we (the US and civilized world) pollute about 75% less than we did 50 years ago so I would look to all the deforistation and wars and clear cutting of jungle to create farmlands in third world countries.... just my two cents, but we might accelerate stuff, but its not unnatural....

The day we all die is the day they'll learn.

On the global warming issue... Global warming has been observed on Vanus and on Mars. Some people say also on Pluto, but that stetching it. In any case, in the past century, arctic ice shelfs have reduced in size by 90%. 90%!! If not global warming, what could have done that?

Here's the thing, though. Most people compare global temperatures to ice age tempuratures for 10,000 years ago. However, we don't know for a fact that the last ice age has ended, yet. There is evidence that the south pole before the last ice age (which would've been the continent of Australia at the time) included forests similar to those seen in the NorthEastern US state of Washington. If the south pole at that time had a forest, while the south pole nowadays had nothing but miles-thick ice, who's to say that global warming isn't occuring? For all we know, an average global tempurature of 90 degrees is normal, all in all. We simply do not know.

Could you site your sources for these facts? I'm curious to know more, especially about global warming on other planets.

I wonder what would happen if the doomsday clock hit midnight and nothing whatsoever occurred, would that in effect cause the doomsday clock to be discredited?

It would in turn have to be, since the doomsday clock is simply based on a theory by some scientists.

World events can change too quickly for a "symbolic clock" to keep up with the ever changing times. It actually serves very little purpose, because how many people do you believe heard this and decided to try to do something about preventing nuclear war or global warming? Very few if your lucky, the only thing it may do is to get people talking. Talking and acting are two very different things entirely.

The closest it could get is one minute to midnight. Armageddon would be at midnight, and the clock would be moot.

I don't have any on hand. I'll see what I can do about looking some up.

But that would also mean we've moved back in time, it doesn't seem to be anything more than Bush's color coded terrorism risk ratings.

You say this because you're not familiar with the concept of the Clock. People in power are very familiar with it, they listen to these scientists and they take action at time. It mightn't be the right action, or it might be the right action at the wrong time, but things do happen. Look at the disarmament of nuclear weapons and the end of the Cold War as examples. Just the fact that the clock has been moved only 18 times in 60 years and the one other example of that happening in our lifetime was after the 2001 WTC disaster. Do you not understand what it means that this clock has just been moved two minutes CLOSER to Armageddon than it was after the WTC attacks? What does that say about the war in Iraq? Is it really making the word a safer place?? All of these things that the American, British and Australian govt's are meant to be doing to disarm the 'Axis of Evil' and the clock is edging closer than it was before all of this started.

This tells me that there is something very very wrong.