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/
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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
Crank it forward to about 6:00 a.m. Anyone silly enough to be paying attention to that clock could just get a cup of coffee and wake up and find they weren’t doomed to begin with. Start the new day trying to find something else to worry about!
Remember “Galaxy Quest”. The bomb, the threat, whatever always stops at 2 seconds before the time runs out. At 2 minutes or even one, we have lots and lots of time left!
Seem to me that after midnight, a new day starts.
I would say a few important people are having a ‘growing regard’ for scientific information and a large number of poorly educated academicians are stumbling with understanding this.
Buying into simply the term “ocean acidification” in and of it self shows this fact. C02 can’t bring the ocean to an acid level but can lower it’s alkalinity. ( Even under the 3-4 other pH scales.) Hence, a scientific statement would be ‘moving the ocean towards neutral’ or a ‘lowering of it’s alkalinity’ is a more precise statement of science. The other (OA) is just some science wrapped in politics.
When alarmist someday realize this (if ever) the lightbulb might go on illuminating their own perverse interpretation of what has happened. Including this gross and blanket statement about ‘growing disregard’.
Lastly, the fact that that they added “expertise” to ‘growing disregard for scientific expertise” is a phoney way of saying science is only properly done in consensus mode. BS to that. Anyone who has ever been in a detailed legal situation knows a great deal about dueling experts. With, frequently, 100% opposite views.
So apparently, a bunch of nuclear scientists are so good at climate science AND understanding why ‘we’ (skeptics) are here that they feel empowered to lecture the rest of us.
I would argue the biggest doomsday threats are natural not man made. Meteor strike anyone? How about a nice big volcano in the tropics? Perhaps an earthquake and tsunami to spoil your day…
71 years and their clock is still stopped.
Stopped clocks reflect stuck minds.
My prediction? … at one minute before midnight, the world will explode due to natural causes, and there will be nobody left to appreciate the poetic irony of that moment.
Oddly there is a doomsday clock that people feel quite comfortable ignoring:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Very real, very scary.
Why worry since it seems to me like this clock has been between 11:55 and 11:57 since I was a kid and that was more than a half-century ago. If time continues to move as slowly as the Doomsday Clock, I should still be alive in 2100 or beyond.
With the Obama/Kerry nuclear WW III on the horizon,
they likely should move it forward.
The sock puppets Iran and N. Korea will make sure things happen.
Vatican’s Doomsday Clock starting ticking after the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board must hurry – they have at least 1600 years catching up to do.
The Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board members may have an excuse of University of Cambridge’s blind-faith booster vaccine against scientificus methodicus virus*, but the chair, Foundation Professor Lawrence Krauss, School of Earth and Space Exploration and Physics Department in Arizona State University, should know better.
*https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/23/study-presenting-deliberately-weakened-skeptic-arguments-increases-climate-acceptance/
Well people according to the democrats it is half past midnight and time for bed, the wailing and the inconsolables are having a well deserved rest, let sanity reign for the next 8 years.
It started in 1947 at 7 minutes. Went to 3 when the Soviets tested their first nuc in 1949. It was at 2 minutes during the early days of Hydrogen bomb testing in 1953. It went to 3 minutes during the Reagan era until the Berlin wall came down when it went back the furthest it ever has to 17 minutes. It’s now at 3 minutes primarily because of Climate Change and the perceived failure of the developed world to destroy their economies to combat it. If they move it closer to midnight it will be at or beyond the 2 minute mark which is the lowest it’s been. This despite the fact that since WW II globally we have lived in relatively the most peaceful time and are producing more food per capita, and have the best quality of life, than during all the rest of human history.
Timeline of the Doomsday Clock:
http://thebulletin.org/timeline
Hmmm but didn’t Prince Charles announce that we had 100 months to save the planet?
That was on 5 March 2009. Adding a hundred months takes us to 5 July this year.
While they are adjusting the doomsday time they need to set the date as well, unless they’ve lost the user manual and we all know how hard that can be.
History will show that President Obama’s “Iran Deal” undermined the fundamental soundness of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by having the Security Council allow a signing state to ignore the provisions and continue to enrich.
Now, that is “being on the wrong side of history.”
Enrichment for fuel assemblies used in nuclear power plants is permitted. The NPT has no provisions in it for enrichment activities. Educate yourself with regards to the “Additional Protocol”
.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/non-proliferation/safeguards-to-prevent-nuclear-proliferation.aspx