Posted on 01/10/2012 1:55:41 PM PST by Graybeard58
Citing ongoing threats from nuclear proliferation, climate change and the need to find sustainable and safe sources of energy, scientists moved the symbolic “Doomsday Clock” one minute closer to midnight on Tuesday.
The clock was moved from six minutes till midnight to five minutes to midnight.
The clock is symbolic and has been maintained by the University of Chicago-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1947. The closer to a setting of midnight it gets, the closer it is estimated that a global disaster will occur.
“It is five minutes to midnight,” the scientists said Tuesday. “Two years ago, it appeared that world leaders might address the truly global threats that we face. In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed.”
“There are still 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world — enough to kill all of humanity many times over,” Robert Socolow of Princeton University said at a news conference in Washington D.C..
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project. The scientists created the Doomsday Clock in 1947 using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero), to convey threats to humanity and the Earth.
The bulletin has grown into an organization focused more generally on manmade threats to human civilization.
The Doomsday Clock had most recently been moved back from five to six minutes to midnight in 2010, in a response to the worldwide reduction of nuclear weapons and attempts to limit climate change.
The clock came closest to midnight — just two minutes away — in 1953, after the successful test of a hydrogen bomb by the United States. It has been as far away as 17 minutes, set there in 1991 following the demise of the Soviet Union.
Let's get it over with already.
The Amish and the Myans.
every time Obama gets re-elected, the clock runs backwards for 4 years.
it’s all good.
Eventually, yes. :)
Five minutes to midnight is half past freckle, for all I see it.
“the successful test of a hydrogen bomb by the United States”
USA! USA! USA!
Sounds to me that they moved it up because of no new agreements on limiting “greenhouse gases” and that other crap from that convention last year. Has little (if anything) to do with nukes.
2 Minutes To Midnight by Iron Maiden....
So basically all of those really smart fellers at the University of Chicago have proven for over 60 years that they really don’t know caca.
lol...I guarantee you that some of the biggest idiots on the planet were involved in this decision.
Fool + Education = Idiot.
This is one stopped clock that is never right...
“Let’s get it over with already.”
Amen! Let me pour a drink, position my lounge chair in line with the Naval Base located less than two miles away.
Give me just five minutes, then hit the plunger.
“Captain, turn your key!!”
“Let’s get it over with already.” - Post of the Decade.
When I saw that the “Doomsday Clock” included Glo-bull Warming as part of its calculation, I took it even less seriously.
Everyone knows that Baraq al-Husayn bin Obama has made this a much more dangerous world, however. I don’t need some liberal ‘clock’ to tell me that.
GMTA - I had the same thought when I read the headline. Up the Irons!!
I see even these hacks are on the climate change bandwagon. With that, they lose all credibility.
How about considering the current Islamization of the Middle East under the Kenyan’s watchful eye instead of the bogus “climate change” meme.
Now, with the latest news, the clock should be moved BACK 5 hours (one hour per each ice age avoided)...
Next Ice Age delayed by rising CO2 levels
Keep up the big carbon footprints... avoiding your doom DEPENDS on it!
Agreed - another example of an organization that has jumped the shark. If they wanted to be honest about real threats, Iran and North Korea come to mind, but that wouldn't be politically correct...
They added climate change to the reasons for moving the clock ahead to doomsday? Give me a break.
“Citing ongoing threats from nuclear proliferation, climate change...”
Threats from weather and temperature?
All we need to know about this crap is that it’s a leftist train of neo-fascist university sausage bologna.
Hey, Sam. Crank the universal bullshit situation handle, and let’s what we get.
Fred, it’s still bullshit.
- Ronald Reagan (best presidential quote ever.)
"I would only agree that a symbolic clock is as nourishing to the intellect as a photograph of oxygen to a drowning man."
- Doctor Manhattan
My favorite Maiden song.
(a) the clock represents the number of year (expressed as minutes) until we are all blown up, drowned, nibbled to death by rabid herds of okapi, etc;
(b) it has been in use for at least thirty years; and
(c) it has never read more than 15 “minutes” to midnight, or less than two.
I conclude, therefore, that it has never and will never show the “correct” time, and is an entirely useless instrument. Like water-powered bagpipes or a pocket ruler marked off in parsecs.
I just don’t know how much more of this my heart can take. There is something to be said for the “don’t worry be happy” attitude.
Hakuna Matata.
Look at the positive side of things. The hydrogen bomb tests brought us the bikini!!! ;-)
Hakuna Matata, I like that.
I’m a Midnight Rambler!
If they are worried about “climate change”, they are running at least ten minutes fast...
Yeah. I still have a ringside seat for WWIII...
No. Not atoll. It blew it away! (8^D)
BAS said not all news was bad over the past year. The group’s members say they were heartened by the Arab Spring, the Occupy movements and political protest in Russia.
Those developments, said Benedict, “indicated that people are waking up, and want to have a say in their future.”
So, according to these morons' reasoning, the spread of Islamofascism and the rise of clueless anarchy are hopeful signs.
Tells you everything that you need to know about these imbeciles and the mediots pay them any mind.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.