Press release:
“DOOMSDAY CLOCK” ANNOUNCEMENT SET FOR JANUARY 26TH IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
White House in Transition, US-Russia Relations, North Korean Ambitions, Iran Nuclear Deal, and Uncertain Fate of Climate Solutions Among the Factors Being Weighed.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – NEWS ADVISORY – The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will host a live international news conference at 10 a.m. EST/1500 GMT on January 26, 2017 to announce whether the minute hand of the iconic “Doomsday Clock” will be adjusted. The decision is made by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board in consultation with the Board of Sponsors, which includes 15 Nobel Laureates.
Factors influencing the 2017 deliberations regarding any adjustment that may be made to the Doomsday Clock include: a rise in strident nationalism worldwide, President Donald Trump’s comments on nuclear arms and climate issues, a darkening global security landscape that is colored by increasingly sophisticated technology, and a growing disregard for scientific expertise.
In January 2016, the Doomsday Clock’s minute hand did not change, remaining at three minutes before midnight, the closest it has been to midnight since the early days of above-ground hydrogen bomb testing. The Clock was changed in 2015 from five to three minutes to midnight.
News event speakers for the Doomsday Clock announcement on January 26, 2017 will include:
* Lawrence Krauss, chair, Bulletin Board of Sponsors; director, Origins Project at Arizona State University; and Foundation Professor, School of Earth and Space Exploration and Physics Department, Arizona State University.
* Thomas Pickering, Bulletin Board of Sponsors; former US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (1997-2000) and US Ambassador to the United Nations, the Russian Federation, India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, and Jordan. Ambassador Pickering is currently focused on nonproliferation, most recently the Iran nuclear agreement.
* David Titley, Bulletin Science and Security Board; professor of practice, Pennsylvania State University Department of Meteorology, and founding director, Penn State’s Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk. Dr. Titley is nationally known expert in the field of climate, the Arctic, and national security, and a retired rear admiral. While serving as Oceanographer and Navigator of the Navy, Dr. Titley initiated and led the U.S. Navy’s Task Force on Climate Change.
* Rachel Bronson, executive director and publisher, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists;
TO PARTICIPATE IN PERSON: You can attend the Doomsday Clock news event on January 26, 2017, 10 a.m. EST/1500 GMT at the National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW, Washington, D.C., in the First Amendment Lounge. Attendance 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 and pmitchell@hastingsgroup.com; or Alex Frank, (703) 276-3264 and afrank@hastingsgroup.com.
CAN’T PARTICIPATE IN PERSON?: Journalists unable to attend the live news conference can view a live streaming webcast of the event at http://clock.thebulletin.org/
###
My personal opinion is that they’ll move it forward, and make Trump’s lack of climate concern a big part of it.
The real question is: Other than journos chasing a story, does anybody care? I sure don’t, because it’s nothing but a symbolic personification of a consensus opinion, and really has no impact beyond scaring people.
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. – Shakespeare’s MacBeth, Scene 5.5
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Who knew the doomsday clock was still a thing? (Other than that 1980’s Iron Maiden song.)
I love the quote: “Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. – Shakespeare’s MacBeth, Scene 5.5, but pluralize it to “Told by idiots, full of sounds…” and thus Shakespeare gets it right 410 years later when he belatedly refers to the Doomsday Clock. Of course, “Doomsday Crock” might be preferred by the Bard!
‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.’
Macbeth Act v Scene 5
‘It has never been hard to tell the difference between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.’
P.G. Wodehouse
Reading Wodehouse at the moment, good for the soul.
Nigel S,
Give me Wodehouse and George MacDonald Fraser. I’m good until doomsday, thanks.
That idiotic clock is just one more figment of some jerk wad on the left wing of the political spectrum who has an idiotic notion that they can override Biblical Revelation. Get you shit in order because the fallout will occur no matter who is in power.
moral: don’t let liberals keep time
You managed to include “figment” and “Biblical Revelation” in the one sentence. Well done.
Tony: You managed to look foolish and arrogant in one sentence. Congrats.
If it’s 3 min to midnight ( doomsday ) , what the hell does climate change matter ? We’ll all be dead before pass the hypothetical “tipping point” of 2 deg C anyway.
If the clock ever works it way back to 23:30 maybe we can consider if AGW is an issue and push it to 23:31.
Something that will take the best part of a century to ( allegedly ) become a problem is not an issue at 23:58. What the world is waking up to is that we have far more important and pressing issues the AGW, even if it is an issue at all.
If the DD clock does get moved, it will because of 8 years of Obama and Clinton, not because of three days of Trump.
Obama deliberately and irresponsibly inflamed the situation with Russia in a perverted attempt to wreck Trump’s aims of having better relations before he ever got into office.
Doubtless the Swedish Academy will give him another Peace Prize this year in recognition of his efforts.
Doomsday? “Bring it on!”
Haven’t read a single thing about the ‘doomsday clock’ in a decade or more. Interesting.
On the doomsday clock, trust the onion to get the news straight.
http://www.theonion.com/article/doomsday-clock-pushed-one-minute-midnight-after-ar-53011
It’s really a huge joke. Thanks for the reminder.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock for a history. Note that it was 2 minutes before midnight over 50 years ago in 1953 and yet many of us are still around.
Predicting imminent doom has been a sideline job for scientists of the ivory tower kind for as long as institutions have been cranking them out. This is evil propaganda which is again being timed to frighten the population. There is no other useful purpose to this speculation but to incite negativity.
The “Atomic Scientists” Doomsday Clock disproves the old saw about even a broken clock being right twice a day…
Fear, fear, fear. That’s really ALL the Left has got. The day they can’t gin up general panic over their next fictional hobgoblin, no one will have a reason to listen to a THING they say. We’ve been told “the world is ending” since the ancient Greeks–and we’re all still here. Time to IGNORE all this happy horseshi-te.
Roast potatoes, the most recent scare story in the UK right now. Evidently, they give you cancer. Who knew?
Are they more dangerous than sawdust?
The guys (and girl) down at the boatyard tend to take that one with a pinch of salt. Put plenty of salt on their chips too!
HotScot,
We had a similar situation in Sweden with potato chips (not french fries) back in ~2001. Not to forget, the BBQ scare …
Well, I do not see any ancient Greeks wandering about, so perhaps they were on to something
HotScot don’t forget the toast scare.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/1/2017/01/23/12/wire-39435-1485175024-851_634x493.jpg
picture because I love toast
How far forward did they move the clock when Obama entered into a deal which gives Iran an unfettered path to nuclear weapons in what is now 13.5 years?
The lack of inspections and enforcement in the Obama agreement means that there is no need for the Iranians to wait one minute in their nuclear plans. Much less 13.5 years.
I am putting the agreement in its best possible light in order to demonstrate that it is utterly moronic.
North Korea continues work on its first strike EMP weapon. Their layer cake hydrogen enhanced weapon is the key along with ICBM capability to detonate at altitude over Canada to knock out US power grid.
Right on! The solution of hardening against EMP is at hand & would employ a lot of (electrical) industrial workers. Use a bit of the $’s being wasted on Global Warming “research”!
I saw an article just the other day about spray-on EMP protection. It was concrete mixed with metallic particles, in a consistency that could be sprayed on to just about any kind of structure.
Not just the power grid, pretty much every modern electronic device, i.e. all vehicles as well. My ’59 Porsche will run, to little avail. Will Trump have the will to take them out before they can deploy them? Thank Bill Clinton for their nukes.
Pretty much everything is already hardened to an EMP. A lightning bolt a few hundred feet away has many times the EMP potential than the worst case nuclear scenario.
Electric lines are vulnerable because they run for miles and as such can build up huge charges.
The Doomsday Clock has a quantum mechanism. Spooky. Perhaps they should run it several thousand, million more times until it reaches a consensus.
Move the clock forward an hour for daylight savings time.
Hah! Good one.
So this is why they invented the calculus, it’s for infinite approach to the limit for political theater and headlines. At this rate China and North Korea could lay claims to the entire Pacific Ocean and it would not register but Trump and climate change would make it lurch forward with drama.
Just like the good old days, when capitulation to whatever the Soviets wanted moved the clock back, but any resistance to Soviet aggression was the surest way to advance the clock.
Since media insists on Trump being Putin’s puppet, the clock should be moved back at least 60 minutes.
It is time to have this useless memento disappear. All it has become is a tool for liberals push their agenda.
What’s the point of this “clock”, are they trying to demonstrate Zeno’s paradox?
Yes!
But who’s watching the Watchmen?
I hope the clock will be moved forward at least 2,5 minutes. Then, they can start on the final countdown…will be fun to see them stretching out the seconds, until only one is left. And then…boom and doom or the gloom of oblivion?
That’s when they start measuring micro-seconds.
“super cereal?” Do you mean surreal, or is there some nutritious aspect of Zeno’s arrow that I overlooked?
Obviously, It’s what the Justice League has as part of their balanced breakfast. ^_^
It’s also a super serial… Always a “cliff hanger” for decades now.
I think it’s toast, not cereal.
So are all of these people depending on taxpayer funding now under threat from Trump? No bias then.
Whenever I see these people whining about Trump, the only thing that comes to mind is Kirk screaming “Kahn!” at the top of his lungs, looking completely deranged.
Leftist Green: “Trump!!!!!”
>_< Thanks, Severian. I'm never getting that image out of my head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCU7I7CSc8c
My cup overfloweth.
I would recommend a dash of:
http://www.monstersupplies.org/products/salt-made-from-tears-of-anger
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=salt+sprinkle+gif&biw=1920&bih=985&tbm=isch&imgil=L2KPft9Skn7sMM%253A%253BVE7kZhRY-H1dDM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fgiphy.com%25252Fgifs%25252Fmeme-steak-seasoning-l4Jz3a8jO92crUlWM&source=iu&pf=m&fir=L2KPft9Skn7sMM%253A%252CVE7kZhRY-H1dDM%252C_&usg=__gsPgVGEKN45NPsDAEm42uqzY44Q%3D&ved=0ahUKEwjD9N_kkdzRAhUGtJQKHVALBYEQyjcIMg&ei=mP6HWMPINIbo0gTQlpSICA#imgrc=L2KPft9Skn7sMM%3A
They see him Trumpin’
They hatin’
Doomsday; and a clock of imagined self-importance; how purile. Who are these people ?
When they find out what carbonated oxygen is and what a “time-lag” is, then let the waling begin.
I suspect the bedwetters’ bank accounts shall all be “adjusted” in this new adjustocene age !
Tick – tock, tick – tock, another lovely day.
Who are these people ?
It started with physicists who worked on the Manhattan Project – that hotbed of corrupted, Marxists.
You think you are being clever, but you are much closer to the mark than you can imagine.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/spies-who-spilled-atomic-bomb-secrets-127922660/
The only thing amazing about tony, is how little he knows about anything.
Feeble, even by your low standard.
And the keepers of the clock stomp their feet, pout, and fuss:
“Look At Me! Look At Me!”
In 1961, the year I was born, the Doomsday Clock was at 7 minutes.
In that year:
The US severs relations with Cuba. Castro announces he is a Marxist.
The US test fires the Minuteman ICBM.
Two B-52’s in 2 separate incidents crash each with 2 nuclear bombs on board.
Both the US and USSR launch the first humans into space.
The USSR detonates the most powerful Hydrogen Bomb ever developed, the Tsar Bomba.
The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
A military coup in Syria.
Construction of the Berlin Wall begins.
There is a standoff of Soviet and American tanks at Checkpoint Charlie.
Kennedy starts sending troops to South Vietnam. The war officially begins.
The Doomsday people mean to tell me that today the clock is at only 3 minutes? Why, because of climate change?
Wow!
If the ‘Doomsday Clock’ was at 7 minutes in 1961 and it’s at 3 minutes now, at that rate I calculate we have ‘only’ 42 years left to ‘ZERO’.
REPENT! The End Is…… 42 Years Away!!!
but of course – the answer is ALWAYS 42!!!!
I’ve got my towel handy, so I’m ready Doomsday. Got to make way for the hyperspace bypass.
Don’t forget your guide ;). Don’t Panic. This planet is mostly harmless.
The problem is you’re looking too closely. You need to stand back and take in the scare story like the rest of the sheep. And pay no attention to the submarine- launched missiles in the Pakistan and NK tests. The real clock threat is electing liberal leaders who signal the all clear to aggressors that it’s okay for invasion of Crimea and claims of the international waters of the entire South China Sea….as starters.
No argument from me RG!
Especially on China trying to annex the entirety of what is euphemistically called the “South China Sea’!
As for the “The Dooms Day Clock and the Bully-Ten of Atomic Scientists”,
I’ll take every opportunity I can find to illustrate them as laughable fools and (barely) useful tools!
42 years…. and counting!
(note to self: Buy more popcorn, butter, salt n beer…)
It’s because “IT”S WORSE THAN THEY THOUGHT!!!” In the mind of a progressive things only get worse, it’s that implicit worse-ness in all things that can only be seen and understood by the progressive mind.
Isn’t that the truth.
Best example are children’s books. Each and every bloody book on animals, nature, stuff like that my 7-year old brings home from the school library, after first doing a reasonable job on the subject at hand, ends with a jeremiad “woe is the little critters, for humans have hunted them/polluted/destroyed their habitat almost to oblivion.” I skip over this drivel, or explicitly state that habitat protection in our western countries has been getting better, not worse, but it still drives me batty.
The Tsar Bomba site today:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/73%C2%B048'26.0%22N+54%C2%B058'54.0%22E/@73.8064867,54.9699609,2412m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d73.8072222!4d54.9816667
Doomsday Clock is highly overrated. Sad.
“The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists”… my, doesn’t that sound important. Does Kenji have a subscription to this publication? Based upon his current affiliations within the community, I’m sure he qualifies as an “atomic scientist”
I’m somewhat aghast that scientists are responsible for this! If it was produced by humanities fringe, I’d just shrug and say “Typical”. But scientists! What sort?
What scientific method do they use to calculate the time to doomsday? Or do they use a global ‘doomsday’ computer model?
Putting the bull into bulletin.
What we really need is a Dumbsday Clock. With Climate Alarmism, the Dumbsday Clock had approached midnight, where mankind’s dumbness would mean he would regress to caveman status. With Obama, I’d say the Dumbsday Clock had approached to within a minute or two of midnight, but now, with Trump, the clock is winding back full throttle.
🙂
Things are running like clockwork for Trump, so far.
I’d like to see Trump establish the “Alarmism Cash Register”. They can have a constantly running total of all of the money being made from spreading fear.
The Clock should be set at 9:34am because I said so. /sarc
I second that.
All in favor ……
OK, but set the alarm for 6 am, please.
The one thing I never worry about is nuclear war where both sides have the ultimate weapon. That’s because, unlike a conventional war, where our leaders send out the great unwashed masses to do the fighting and dying, in a nuclear confrontation, it’s the leaders themselves whose lives are on the line.
Interviewer: “Do you have the power to… destroy the world?”
The Tick: “Dear God, I hope not! That’s where I keep my stuff!”
Remember all the accusations of ‘politics of fear’?