Big day today folks. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists will move the hands on their famous “doomsday clock”.
Here’s my guess. Climate scientist Steven Schneider will be speaking. We know what he is all about. The Copenhagen Climate Conference failed in December and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. My prediction is that these alarmists will move the clock closer to midnight, citing the Copenhagen “failure” as pushing mankind closer to the brink of “climate disaster” or some such phrase.
Plus, we’ll get to watch them turn the hands of the clock live via webfeed. Such stunning visuals. Yawn. I’ll save you the suspense. In 2007 it was set to five minutes to midnight, to reflect the failure to solve problems posed by nuclear weapons. Today I’m guessing they’ll mention Copenhagen’s failure and list climate change as the next global threat and set it to 4 minutes to midnight. Or…maybe 3, if Steven Schneider scares them enough. UPDATE: my guess was wrong: they moved it back to 6 minutes see here
From the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists press release:
Hands of the “Doomsday Clock” to be moved in New York City and seen live on web for first time ever
8 January 2010
… News Advisory for January 14, 2010 …
Factors In Change to Include Nuclear Proliferation, Weapon Stockpile Shifts, and Climate Change; Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Will Open Event to World With Real-Time Streaming Web Broadcast.
NEW YORK CITY///NEWS ADVISORY///January 14, 2010///The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) will move the minute hand of its famous “Doomsday Clock” at 10 a.m. EST/1500 GMT on January 14, 2010 in New York City. For the first time ever, the event will be opened up to the general public via a live Web feed at http://www.TurnBackTheClock.org.
The last time the Doomsday Clock minute hand moved was in January 2007, when the Clock’s minute hand was pushed forward by two minutes from seven to five minutes before midnight.
The precise time to be shown on the updated Doomsday Clock will not be announced until the live news conference in New York City takes place on January 14, 2010. Factors influencing the latest Doomsday Clock change include international negotiations on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, expansion of civilian nuclear power, the possibilities of nuclear terrorism, and climate change.
News event speakers will include:
- Lawrence Krauss, co-chair, BAS Board of Sponsors, foundation professor, School of Earth and Space Exploration and Physics departments, associate director, Beyond Center, co-director, Cosmology Initiative, and director, New Origins Initiative, Arizona State University.
- Stephen Schneider, member, BAS Science and Security Board, professor of environmental biology and global change, Stanford University, a co-director, Center for Environment Science and Policy of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and senior fellow, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
- Jayantha Dhanapala, member, BAS Board of Sponsors, president, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, and chair, 1995 UN Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Conference;
- Pervez Hoodbhoy, member, BAS Board of Sponsors, professor of high energy physics, and head, Physics Department, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan; and
- Kennette Benedict, executive director, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists subsequently created the Doomsday Clock in 1947 as way to convey both the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero). The decision to move the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock is made by the Bulletin’s Board of Directors in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 19 Nobel Laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and emerging technologies in the life sciences.
TO PARTICIPATE IN PERSON: Attend the live news event on January 14, 2010 at 10 a.m. EST, at the New York Academy of Sciences Building, at 7 World Trade Center, 250 Greenwich St, 40th floor, New York City. The event will be limited to credentialed members of the news media. For security reasons, all attendees must RSVP in advance by contacting Patrick Mitchell, (703) 276-3266, or pmitchell@hastingsgroup.com.
CAN’T PARTICIPATE IN PERSON?: Reporters outside of New York City who are unable to attend the live news event in person can watch and listen to the news conference via a live Webcast by registering by 945 a.m. EST on January 14, 2010 at http://www.TurnBackTheClock.org/media. A streaming audio replay of the news event will be available on the Web at http://www.thebulletin.org as of 6 p.m. EST/2300 GMT on January 14, 2010.
Um if this clock was for nuclear destruction, shouldn’t it stay at that? Or did their pet headline maker die a natural death after years of fearmongering? Why not make a climate clock, and set the nuclear one back to quarter-to the hour?
Arguably nuclear war is just as likely now as 50 years ago with a lot more countries with ‘the bomb’ and ballistic missile technology, but now nobody gives two hoots about it. Terrorism attacks are just as likely as 10 years ago, but nowadays people just live with it. Note the undie bomber only got about 5 minutes of fame despite being caught red-handed trying to blow up an airliner. All fearmongering eventually fizzles out because people are resilient and get over their fears. It’s just impossible to keep people fearful for a long time if their fears fail to materialize, something the AGW people are quickly finding out. I bet more people are more scared of sharks than climate change.
Anthony,
This is off topic.
A paper by a hungarian physicist suggests CO2 emissions are irrelevant to Earth’s climate.
You may want to post on it some time if you haven’t already or have plans to do so in the near future.
Here is a link to an article on the paper from the Portland Civil Rights Examiner.
Interesting reading.
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2010m1d12-Hungarian-Physicist-Dr-Ferenc-Miskolczi-proves-CO2-emissions-irrelevant-in-Earths-Climate
Why not just steal more from religious theocracies and say that judgement day is imminent and that all carbon sinners will burn for eternity in global warming hell?
[prohibited words, try again ~ ctm]
It’s Always the End of the World as We Know It
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/opinion/01dutton.html
Why We Love to be scared
http://www.livescience.com/health/061030_fear_factor.html
Going back to FEAR:
– Fear is a powerful emotion, given that people don’t know they are being manipulated. Fear becomes a powerful tool for governing and control
– Fear is the basis of the “green” movement. Fear is the tool of powerful people. When you see the use of FEAR, ask yourself why?
– Fear is the path to the dark side… fear leads to anger… anger leads to hate.. hate leads to suffering. – Yoda
I am more worried of the USA/Israel declaring war to Iran on baseless accusation than anything else.
Or like we saw this week in Haiti, maybe we should fear Mother Nature’s capacity of destroying years of human work and hardship in seconds.
“Plus, we’ll get to watch them turn the hands of the clock live via webfeed. Such stunning visuals. Yawn.”
Too true. What kind of inane crap is this? And haven’t these people (living and working in NYC all these years as they have, they would have ample opportunity I would assume) taken a lesson from all the other sandwhich-boarders out there who like to warn us about the End of the World?
Doomsday Clock.
1999. Y2K.
2012. Mayans.
…
Doomsday propaganda.
All this measures is their fear factor. So what? People go through cycles of fear all the time.
I’d rather see objective measures with no artificial scales or limits rather than a summarized metaphorical clock.
Do we really need someone soothsaying our doom for us?
I suppose our species is doomed to have soothsayers and mystics and other such unprovable nonsense till the end of time, well the end of our species that is. So we are doomed after all! [:)]
Just reading John Mueller’s ‘ Atomic Obsession’. In it he states that an editor of the Bulletin said that a purpose of the publication was ‘to preserve civilisation by scaring men into rationality’ (p26). Mueller points out that the clock had been perpetually hailing imminent catastrophe without result for over half a century (p92). Interestingly the Bulletin had a subscription campaign in 2006 using the slogan ‘Dispensing facts instead of fear for over sixty years’ (p56).
I’m intrigued that they should now add climate change to their brief – maybe the subscription campaign didn’t work.
You know how it goes: “Disaster strikes at 12!”
Then nothing happens, and so they move the clock hand back 5 minutes, and repeat the warning, but even louder.
And this process keeps repeating.
“Hands of the “Doomsday Clock” to be moved in New York City and seen live on web for first time ever”
I feel so lucky.
@PeterB “…the Bulletin said that a purpose of the publication was ‘to preserve civilisation by scaring men into rationality’”
Yes because fear activates the neocortex brain of reason, and not the older reptilian part associated with aggression, dominance, sex, rigidity, obsessiveness, compulsiveness, worship, submission, greed and fear….. oops.
Perhaps the clock is being moved because of the developments in Iran’s nuclear program.
Perhaps they’ll push back the hands, based on the new, super-duper conference on climate change to be held in Coshabamba, Bolivia, April 20-22. See,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/14/climate-talks-un-sidelined
This conference “…is expected to attract heads of state from the loose alliance of socialist “Alba” countries, including Venezuela and Cuba. Alba, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America countries, was set up to provide an alternative to the US-led free trade area of the Americas.”
The last two paragraphs set out the goals of the attendees. AGW is truly a big umbrella for those who hate the US and/or capitalism – note that CO2 is no longer the culprit, capitalism is:
“The meeting, which is intended to cement ties between the seven Alba countries, is also expected to pursue the idea of an international court for environmental crimes, as well as the radical idea of “mother earth rights”. This would give all entities, from man to endangered animal species, an equal right to life.
“Our objective is to save humanity and not just half of humanity,” said Morales in a speech at Copenhagen. “We are here to save mother earth. Our objective is to reduce climate change to [under] 1C. [Above this] many islands will disappear and Africa will suffer a holocaust. The real cause of climate change is the capitalist system. If we want to save the earth then we must end that economic model.”
Stop the scare mongering with the use of your tax money.
I say, take the clock from the wall and run it over with a 100 ton roller.
I am very curious what John Coleman has to say today in his Climategate special 9 pm Pacific Time:
KUSI meteorologist, John Coleman, has an amazing story to tell of science gone bad, and new revelations as the “climategate” scandal comes to the United States.
Join us on Thursday, January 14th, at 9pm, Pacific Time, for the special report that will explode the global warming myth!
Set your DVR to record this broadcast and Anthony, can you provide a link to this broadcast?
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/81175327.html
The only clock I can hear ticking at the moment is the one that marks the end of ‘The Great CAGW Scam’. Every day more and more doubters come out of the woodwork and even the MSM are defying their paymasters.
Good example in today’s Daily Express “CLIMATE CHANGE IS NATURAL: 100 REASONS WHY”
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/146138
Like watching maple syrup run up hill in January, while listening to the Jeopardy theme music. dumb dumb!… dumb dumb.. dumb dumb!… duuuuumb… dumb dumb… dumb dumb… duuummmmb! dumb dumb…
Put the clock to 1 minute past midnight and see if we’re still around. If so, then finally end the alarmism.
Stefan (02:12:32) : “There’s a confusion when scientists, who’s work should rightly be confined and regulated by ethical issues, start to think of science as a means to impose ethics on the world. That seems to be part of what went wrong in climatology. “The science” was used to make an absolute case for imposing different lifestyles and morals on people.”
I would say opinions, rather than ethics and morals, because they see AGW as real, first. Only in accepting that does it become a moral issue to them.
It’s a lot like the sceond-hand smoke “debate” was. The data, iirc, didn’t show any harm to nonsmokers, except perhaps over the long run (at the age where people start to drop dead anyway). That was used to justify the corruption of the concepts of private and public property, because it “protects people from a known harm”. It also further justifified assault on business, re-enforced the notion that corporations are usually unethical and out to get us.
Alarmists jump the gun, and that means they can’t be imposining morals because they are determining something before it is proven to be the right path. There’s no way to tell except through further study as to whether their actions were the right path or not. But given what human nature is, I don’t think these kinds of things will ever be avoidable. The thing that gets me is that once further study concludes the opposite, that there is little if anything to fear, policy doesn’t change. It tends to get worse, in fact, and extends the new meaning to areas where it was previously lacking (and lacking for good reason, but when fear and obligation team up…)
If they are so serious about this doomsday clock, why aren’t they displaying it on every TV channel all day to keep us up to date? Oh of course I forgot. It’s just a silly game.
5 mins to midnight? Great, time for a nightcap. Yawn…
Stephen H Schneider is a biologist by qualification.
Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies
Professor, Department of Biology
Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment
Professor, by courtesy, Civil and Environmental Engineering.
At Stanford University, otherwise known as global warming central.
Stanford sent 65 Sixty Five !! delegates to COP15, presumably in the hope of securing more fat grants in addition to spreading the
wordalarm.One of Schneiders sidekicks is Chris Field. Google him.
Leif might be able to tell us more, his office is just across the road from the Woods Institute building on the Stanford campus.
Funny thing is, if we get one good-sized belch from the Sun heading in our direction, I don’t think they could run fast enough to update that clock in time.
The Threat of Nuclear Annihilation, indeed.
Let’s use the clock to play a giant game of ‘Twister’…
need more dots…
First article I read on this had “and climate change” appended to every line, almost as if it had been written in some bizarre verse-form.
When did they update the purpose of the clock to include “and climate change”?
Perhaps in the early 70s?
Oh, Brave New World, to have such nonsense in it!
(and climate change)
If the atomic doomsday clock is moving closer to midnight its surely due more to terrorism than anything else!
On a not unrelated theme in more than one sense, one of my favourite somgs – Iron Maiden’s Two Minutes to Midnight!
If the world keeps listening the way they have already, they soon might have to resort to a second hand.
The rest of us just sort out the world over a few drinks and forget it by next morning.