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.
(click)
So, you add 1 degree C to the average temps of Barrow, Alaska, where the monthly average highs and lows are shown in the graph displayed in the following link (make sure you select “metric”), and that’s supposed to portend doom for some reason?
http://www.weather.com/outlook/events/sports/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/USAK0025?role=&from=month_bottomnav_sports
Adding 1 degree C on average to Barrow, Alaska, would increase the number of months where the average low was above freezing to exactly the number of months it has now (June’s average low would rise to 0, which still isn’t above freezing), so the net impact would still be nine months where the average low was below freezing, (the monthly average lows would be -28, -29, -28, -21, -8, 0, 2, 2, -1, -11, -20, -26 for the months of J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D respectively, when 1 degree C is added)
and the number of months where the average high was below freezing would still be eight (the average monthly highs would be-21, -22, -21, -13, -3, 5, 9, 8, 3, -6, -14, -20 for the months of J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, O, N, D respectively, when 1 degree C is added).
And this is somehow supposed to melt all the continental polar ice? This is supposed to make in uninhabitable for, perhaps, polar bears? Or seals? Or people?
I seriously doubt it.
The stupidity of asserting a 1 degree C increase in overall world temps is catastrophic simply boggles the mind.
Correction:
“…so the net impact would still be nine months where the average low was AT OR below freezing…”
Geez, I didn’t know the Giant Clock O’ Doom was still around. Back in the Olden Days, the twits used to make a huge show of setting it to two minutes to midnight every time someone on either side of the fence rattled a saber — but they never showed them turning it back to 11:57PM (okay, 2357) *prior* to moving it forward to two minutes to midnight.
Kinda funny, but the “scientists” either frowned into the camera or smirked…
This is the real doomsday clock: click
Climategate quiz on utube.
@Bill Tuttle
“Geez, I didn’t know the Giant Clock O’ Doom was still around….”
And there, in a nutshell, you have the reason for this little phobia-fest……
Smokey (04:25:46) :
“This is the real doomsday clock: click”
Right on. I would also say LOL to that, but sadly our massive debt (to which these “scientists” contribute) is not a laughing matter…
It doesn’t seem to be a very accurate clock.
Italy has shrunk to a stub. Africa seems to have grown a new peninsular off Tunis, and the Straits of Gibraltar have also widened extensively.
It is hard to see, but I suspect that this is one of those maps with no Great Britain? And it is interesting to see Scandinavia not much longer than it is wide….
Smokey (04:25:46) :
This is the real doomsday clock:
Wow, personal credit card debt is falling fast!
This must be the doomsday clock for the serial apocalyptic doomsaying movement!
Or maybe I’m just naïve!
I understand that they have heavy security arrangement when they do this stunt!
No protest or serious questions allowed, of course!
The clock is all part of a FUD ( fear, uncertainty and doubt ) marketing tactic. Climate scientists and the greens have borrowed this tactic from the computer industry where it has been used successfully for the last 5 decades.
Say kids, what time is it? It’s howdy doomy time!
pwl: 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! [:)]
Yep, we’re doomed if we do, and doomed if we don’t.
Thanks for the link to the real doomsday clock Smokey (I’ve added it to my favourites).
This does make a good point though. People aren’t scared of AGW – not really scared. The only time I’ve been scared in the way that alarmists want us to be, was in November 2008 at the brink of the banking collapse. That was a real threat, with real harsh consequences, and I was then, very anxious.
AGW scary? Nah!
The ‘Union of Concerned Scientists’ always bothered me.
Which part of the scientific process requires ‘concern’?
I am not an uncaring human, but science is supposed to
be coldly rational not irrational with ‘concern’.
Isn’t ‘concern’ just a fuzzier more acceptable way saying ’emotional’?
Doesn’t emotion DISqualify science?
What if we had:
‘The Union of Hysteric Scientists’?
‘The Union of Frightened Scientists’?
‘The Union of Angry Scientists’?
‘The Union of Depressed Scientists’?
‘The Union of Frightened Scientists’?
‘The Union of Frightened Scientists’?
The full (I assume) list of changes is at http://www.thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/timeline . I subscribed for a few years in the late 1970. They didn’t talk about the weather or climate then, I guess they’re running out of topics (1).
The do publish some dissent, see http://books.google.com/books?id=ygwAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA64#v=onepage&q=&f=false The link for that was on their home page, but I forgot and went back to search for it in search engines and, umm, struck out.
I can’t copy the scanned text here, but either skip the first several paragraphs or read the first sentence and be too annoyed at author William M Arkin to read the rest.
Happy new fear everyone.
I say we lock Schneider and types like him into the hotter-than-hell climate prison that Washington D.C. has become – they will fry in no time at all! See this chart…….
http://www.c3headlines.com/2010/01/leftist-big-govt-types-believe-human-co2-causes-warming-theyre-wrong-actually-its-big-govt-that-caus.html
I’ve fixed the clock. 🙂
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/files/2010/01/beertime.jpg
Against what has this clock been calibrated?
AGW is just another method to steal from Joe Citizen…..what a hoax.
Robuk (04:27:23) :
Climategate quiz on utube.
Class. Serious class. Many thanks, Gavin Atkins!
Great clock Tallbloke!! Bottoms up.
The only thing that frightens me for my children, & their children (assuming they will be permitted by the state to have any), is what they are proposing as a solution to a non-problem in the first place.
BTW & OT, (apologies). I said a while back now, they did it to smoking, now they’re going to do it for alcohol, they’ve already started big here in the UK. Met Office also in a mess after admitting they’ve ballsed it up, big time, no worries tho’ they’ll just carry on as usual tinkering away with Deep Thought. Piers Corbyn made his winter prediction/forecast on 28th Octoner 2009 of a cold winter in front of an audience at his Climate Fools Conference, in front of on Richard Black, enviro correspondent for the BBC, who rather sheepishly noted it down as someone in the audience added that the Met Office forecast a milder than usual winter. Where is Richard Black now I wonder?
Fear and Loathing, to quote a personal hero of mine, Fear and Loathing.