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.
Who watches the watchmen ?
As Marvel Comics once put it, since (in the Marvel Universe) there is an infinity of realities, there are Watchers watching Watchers watching Watchers . . . (be vewy, vewy quiet — I’m watching wabbits).
Pascvaks (09:07:35) : And to our naive consciousness: Names go from Einstein to Schneider…
No less a personage than Albert Einstein helped found the Board of Sponsors
http://www.agoodmanonline.com/pdf/free_range_2007_04.pdf
Again WUWT has touched a most “sensitive corn” and it is revealing a common origin. Wow!
Got to buy more popcorn!
It’s the only stopped clock that is never right.
24 hours before all the MSM headlines WUWT debunked it for their readers. Thanks a lot!. The rest of the world will blindfully believe the tale and get scared about it.
“coniston (03:17:52) :
Perhaps the clock is being moved because of the developments in Iran’s nuclear program.”
Or North Korea’s, or Pakistan’s, or India’s.
It’ll be interesting to see which of the nuclear or the climate change elements score the most strongly………
I can’t wait, it’s too exciting!
Pascvaks (09:07:35) :
Science for the sake of science is a very expensive endeavor
When it is about fusion, black holes, entangled strings, phantom dark matter, unseen AH1N1 viruses and all thing they wanted us to believe in, but with time we’ll learn that it is not that expensive…
Some serious credentials on that committee: more than a dozen Nobel Laureates. If only we on the skeptical side could come up with just one.
Or even one scientific organization.
Unfortunately, we can’t so we’ll have to make do with right-wing think tanks like the Heartland Foundation, and eccentric old codgers like Chimp Monckton.
Hickory dickory dock.
John Hooper (10:00:12) :
Some serious credentials on that committee: more than a dozen Nobel Laureates
Credentials like Al “Baby”‘s?
tallbloke (07:23:27) :
Michael Mann’s version of the clock – LOL!!
But… wouldn’t it still show 4 minutes to 12 (it would ‘hide the decline’)?
Don’t feel bad. Apparently these are the same kind of guys who awarded Obama the Nobel Peace prize. SERIOUS HopenChange Kool-Aid drinkers. Who knew?
Their statement is in clear denial that – despite all the “talking”, and good intentions – no new agreements of any substance have been made in recent years. If anything, suicidal fundamentalists muslims are getting REALLY close to having the bomb, which would almost certainly result in the first nuclear attack in over 60 years. These guys are not living in the real world.
What I didn’t realize, though, is that global nuclear war now has a couple of anti-advancement sacred cows riding shogun with this silly “clock” thing (and it always WAS silly). I must be old fashioned, ’cause it used to be that the threat of all-out nuclear war was plenty enough to worry about, it it’s own right. I guess the climate guys aren’t alone with their alarmism.
From Daniel H 11th. link (Something to learn)
“Storytelling as Best Practice”
For thousands of years, human beings have relied on stories to capture and convey important information. Quite naturally, we have evolved into a species that is biologically and culturally oriented towards storytelling. Modern technology has given us shiny new tools with which to communicate – from PowerPoint to the Internet – and in our fervor to remain “cutting edge” we often ignore our natural inclinations in favor of pie charts and bar graphs, reams of data and mountains of text.
The fact remains: if your goal is to educate, persuade, or simply connect in a meaningful way with a particular audience, storytelling is the single most powerful communications tool available to you
Now you know where those stories end: At WUWT
Groundhog Day was better.
“They” will succeed in killing us but from laughing. All their paraphernalia has become a collosal joke. Just imagine: J.H. trains filled up with laughing to death sceptics!!
Roger Knights’ “Hickory dickory dock” just trashed that clock in a black hole!!!
(Roger Knights (10:11:02)
First thought: What happens at midnight? The Earth turns into a pumpkin?
Second thought: At midnight, just hit “snooze”. Presto! Another 10 minutes!
Third thought: How do I tie my work deadlines to this clock?
John Hooper (10:00:12) :
Some serious credentials on that committee: more than a dozen Nobel Laureates. If only we on the skeptical side could come up with just one.
How about the president of the World Federation of Scientists. Beats deadbeat fantasy film makers any day of the week.
Professor Antonino Zichichi
“IPCC models are incoherent and invalid from a scientific point of view”
http://uddebatt.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/ipcc-models-are-incoherent-and-invalid-from-a-scientific-point-of-view/
There’s no question the Nobel Prize is the highest honor you can get in Physics Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, Peace and Economics.
I’m afraid any attempt to denigrate the Peace Prize by using Al Gore as an illustration really only has the opposite effect of demonstrating how successfully he has delivered his message. There was barely any outcry over it, compared to say Obama or Arafat, who were much more controversial.
And once again, I draw attention to the fact that he has every government, every climate monitoring bureau, every scientific organization, every scientific journal and probably just about every Nobel Laureate on his team. And then of course, there’s NASA, who hire some pretty smart people I’m told.
So before we get smug and snide, who do we have again?
You would think on their own webpage, and their own announcement, they would get the address correct….turnBLACKtheclock??? It’s correct at the bottom, but the first mention and hyperlink is wrong….wonder if it was peer reviewed?
Good Lord, the Daily Mail (UK) headlines attribute the one minute reversal as being due to Obama! How stupid can you be?!
John Hooper (10:00:12) :
Aside from the fact that Monckton [that’s LORD Monckton to Hooper, who attacks him with baseless ad hominem name calling] has forgotten more honest science than Hooper will ever learn, it’s interesting that name calling is the best argument he’s got. It must really drive the Hoopers of the world nuts that Lord Monckton effortlessly rubbed Gavin Schmidt’s nose in the playground sand in their debate.
Hooper can spout his trolling nonsense here because he’s not censored. And speaking of chimps, when a scientific skeptic [the only honest kind of scientist, which eliminates everyone on the alarmist side] tries to post on wacko propaganda blogs like climateprogress, realclimate, tamino, etc., the honest folks get this response: click
I give Hooper three and a half Harrops for his baseless ad-hom name-calling. Come to think of it, maybe Hooper is Harrop.
So scientists move back time due to inactivity over climate change.
Lets have a bit more inactivity then and see if we can get to half past the hour, that might just coincide with the end of this cooling period.
Job sorted, cost zero, next problem.
Hooper: What makes a Nobel so special? Gore got one, so did choo-choo Pachauri and Obama for all their outstanding achievements. Seems the prize is rather tainted and is better off being filled with chocolate.
What the clock really represents:
The ratio of fabrication to truth.
They diluted thier own data so badly they forgot what was going on.
That is why thier winter forecast was inverted.
Cry if you will….it’s over buddy!…many a believer end receiving a kick back on their ….☺
Some serious credentials on that committee: more than a dozen Nobel Laureates. If only we on the skeptical side could come up with just one.
Or even one scientific organization.
Hmmm . . . I can’t recall even one “qualified” Nobel laureate or one scientific organization that thought we were not going to be out of nearly all important resources (including food) by the year 2000. Or that population would not have hit a J-curve. (It was all put paid by a man with a BS in physics and no formal economic or demographic training whatever.)
As for predicting the future, it appears obvious that we should carefully seek out the opinions of Nobel laureates and scientific organizations — and assume the opposite. At least if past experience has any meaning at all.