Opinion by Anthony Watts, originally published on Townhall,com
From 1947 to today, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, keepers of the “doomsday clock”—a holdover from the atomic age and Cold War—has predicted doom by moving the hands of a prop clock closer to or further away from midnight. Midnight represents a global doom disaster in progress.
In a breathless press release on January 23, which included a cameo from former California governor and climate activist Jerry Brown, the group announced that due to “climate change,” the world is 20 seconds closer to midnight, standing at 100 seconds (1 minute 40 seconds) before midnight.
Photo by Lexey Swall Photography, courtesy of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
The scientists announced:
Civilization-ending nuclear war—whether started by design, blunder, or simple miscommunication—is a genuine possibility. Climate change that could devastate the planet is undeniably happening. And for a variety of reasons that include a corrupted and manipulated media environment, democratic governments and other institutions that should be working to address these threats have failed to rise to the challenge.
In essence, they are saying nuclear war and climate change are equivalent threats. Such a comparison is mind-bogglingly ridiculous.
Consider that climate change has no “hair trigger” like nuclear catastrophe does. Some despot or dictator who obtains a nuclear weapon is entirely different from the slow change of climate over 100 years.
Yet, these supposedly learned scientists have embraced the hype of “climate emergency” as if it was on par with a nuclear hair trigger. Lamenting the lack of action and interest in climate change, they write:
Lip service continued, with some governments now echoing many scientists’ use of the term “climate emergency.” But the policies and actions that governments proposed were hardly commensurate to an emergency. Exploration and exploitation of fossil fuels continues to grow.
Because all governments don’t sense an “emergency” and have not pulled the plug on electricity grids powered by fossil fuels, the Atomic Scientists are in despair.
They would actually like us to believe that we are presently in more danger of global apocalypse than during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Really? Ask yourself this: Do you feel like climate change may burn your town to a crisp any day now? Do we need to implement “duck and cover” exercises for school kids in case the boogeyman of climate change sweeps down and attacks a city?
The threat comparison between nuclear war and climate change is patently absurd—there’s really no other way to describe it.
Interestingly, it wasn’t until 2007 that “climate change” became a main target on the radar of the atomic scientists. That was one year after Al Gore released his widely viewed scary movie known as An Inconvenient Truth. Since then, “climate change” has been listed as a doomsday factor in each of the eight clock adjustments.
It’s almost as if they swapped one boogeyman for another. Yet, look at the history of the doomsday clock:
Comparing “climate change” to the intensity of all the other threats, it seems completely out of place and of far less magnitude and urgency. Despite 73 years of predicting doomsday proximity, it has never materialized.
So again, with such a track record, ask yourself: Do you feel more threatened by nuclear Armageddon, or the possibility that it might be a little bit warmer next year?
Anthony Watts is former television meteorologist and Senior Fellow for Environment and Climate for The Heartland Institute. He operates the most viewed website on climate in the world, WattsUpWithThat.com
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Utterly ludicrous simpletons.
But they are greedy and ambitious simpletons with a socialist agenda.
They have a disease and they are determined to ensure it spreads as far as possible.
I would say they are historically illiterate. Given the recorded history during the previous warm periods during the Holocene, there is no reason to think that continued warming will cause more strife than we have already experienced. Certainly, the return to Little Ice Age temperatures won’t help either.
AW: “Do you feel more threatened…that it might be a little bit warmer next year?”
commieBob: “there is no reason to think that continued warming…”
Just like two frogs in a saucepan. What could possibly go wrong?
We are not grogs.
The Earth is not a sauce pan.
We are not sitting in water on a hot stove.
We live on a greening planet in an ice age.
Anyone hallucinating that they are a frog in a sauce pan, might want to seek the care of a mental health professional.
Little Loydo is back with another clueless statement.
How come warmists like you ignore the Holocene Optimism, when it was a lot warmer than it is now, yet here we are today……
Don’t you have anything beyond babble to offer?
“a lot warmer than it is now”
Do you have a source for your claim that includes “now”? Because all the information I’ve seen shows the opposite to be true.
“Loydo January 30, 2020 at 10:36 pm
Because all the information I’ve seen shows the opposite to be true.”
What information have *YOU SEEN*. Care to post it, back up your posts?
Loydo
Here you go http://www.biocab.org/Geological_Timescale.jpg
Now wrap up.
C’mon Patrick, Sunsettommy made the unsubstantiated claim, why not ask him to “back up” his post?
HotScot, yep, the sun was cooler back in the Pre-Cambrian…but I guess you knew that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faint_young_Sun_paradox
Um…in case you didn’t read it properly Sunsettommy said “Holocene” so that was what I was asking him about. But thanks for the random graph.
Loydo, here is a link to an article about the Holocene Climate Optimum with numerous charts showing it was indeed warmer than today.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/08/19/the-holocene-climate-optimum/
Why do you do think it got its name?
Bill, none of those charts include “today” – “now”. If you follow the links to the research they are based on, they say BP meaning before 1950, or even earlier: “This plot does not show the temperature rise of around 0.7°C that occurred over the 20th Century”. The author of that post omits to mention that. The other misleading trick is to show a single ice core graph from Greenland and claim it represents the global average.
This graph shows a collection of different reconstructions and their average:
?resize=600%2C405
The same graph 12 years later:
“Today” appears to be quite a bit warmer.
Loydo, you obviously did not read the article I linked to or bother to read the comments on the article. In the future, please do some research before posting.
Loydo, the chart that you have referred to uses the utterly discredited Hockey Stick to show that today’s temperature is the hottest over the last 2000 years. This is what you base your ridiculous claim on that today is warmer than the Holocene Climate Optimum. You really do need to do some research into global warming instead of regurgitating science denying drivel from climate alarmists.
Bill, Loydo is a alarmist troll. Asking him/her to do research before posting is a waste of time, as he/she is not interested in research or the truth, only in pushing their alarmist screed, as can be see in every post they make on this forum.
“Loydo January 31, 2020 at 1:27 am
C’mon Patrick, Sunsettommy made the unsubstantiated claim, why not ask him to “back up” his post?”
That the Holocene was warmer, unsubstantiated? It’s your claim the Holocene wasn’t warmer when the evidence shows Sunsettommy to be correct.
Here’s a challenge for you, little Loydo: I want you to try growing red grapes in North Yorkshire and barley in Greenland today, as they did during the Medieval Warm Period.
“Potatoes, apples, strawberries, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and carrots” all grown in Greenland today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Greenland
North Yorkshire? Aye laddie. https://www.winebusiness.com/news/?go=getArticle&dataid=171427
Loydo: How many of those crops are grown under glass? The Wiki article doesn’t say.
The fields once cultivated by the Vikings are still fallow. As the article says, only about 1% of the country is currently culytivable.
“Chateau Largo is the brainchild of Christopher Trotter, a local chef and food writer who had a dream to start a winery in Scotland. After much research, he planted 200 hybrid grapevines, such as Siegerrebe, that could withstand a cooler climate. His first vintage was available in 2015, but deemed “undrinkable,” by some critics, due primarily to some winemaking issues. However, Trotter was pleased, because he was able to prove that winegrapes can be grown in Scotland and used to produce wine. He plans to continue in his efforts to produce a solid-quality Scottish wine.”
“The bottles had an attractive label with a warrior Scotsman on the front, but also said quite clearly that it was a “Wine of Chile.” The back label explained that the wine was bottled in the UK for St. Andrew’s Distillers. Apparently the Selkirk’s Island brand name was created in honor of a daring Scottish adventurer who was marooned on an island off the coast of Chile. Despite the fact that it really wasn’t made in Scotland, the wine still created some local pride.”
Loydo, perhaps you should read the article first.
“perhaps you should read the article first.”
Grapes are being grown in Scotland and Google maps show several vineyards in Yorkshire.
“Loydo January 31, 2020 at 1:03 pm”
While that is true, the quality isn’t particularly good.
Loydo: Have you taken into consideration the fact that CO2 levels are higher today, thus promoting plant growth?
Loydo, you need to understand the difference between grapes and grains and ground crops. Potatoes for example grow mostly underground and aren’t as susceptible to frosts as grapes and grains.
Really learn some history. Which would you believe; a computer model or the words and actions of the people who were really there?
Wine in Yorkshire: http://www.leventhorpevineyard.co.uk/
And in Australia:
http://www.goodfood.com.au/drinks/wine/how-climate-change-is-affecting-the-australian-wine-industry-20190415-h1dia0
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-15/australias-wine-regions-feeling-pinch-of-climate-change/9644660
Argue all you like, but when the grape harvest in South Australia is now month earlier than it was 40 years ago, something is happening.
Loydo, your Greenland Green Houses –
There’s more than 1 and it’s genuine “Green Houses”:
https://www.google.com/search?q=greenland+greenhouse&oq=Greenland+Green+&aqs=chrome.
The frog in a saucepan metaphor is a myth. link
How long can we afford to feed and clothe these parasites?
The fact that the doomday clock has been predicting doom in 5 minutes since 1947, more than 80 years, speaks for itself!!!
Exactly. They showed their true colors when the cold war ended. They should have set the clock back to last Tuesday. Instead they moved it back a few minutes.
It’s been an obvious joke ever since.
Everyone knows that they started this to help their buddies over in the Soviet Union. I wonder how many people inside of the USSR or satellites knew what time it was? They didn’t.
HotScot:
Utterly ludicrous simpletons
Very first comment & all that needs said. They’ve destroyed any usefulness of “clock” by the SOP of the leftists — mindless scaremongering to the point of a serious psychosis.
Well time does stop as you approach a black hole (of doom messaging).
Or, if you get enough relatives together (Relativity).
“Doomsday clock”. Appropriate name except even a broken clock is right twice a day.
The Doomsday Clock only has to be right once. At least when that day finally comes, we won’t have to listen to: See, I told you so.
I think “Doomsday Crock” is more appropriate.
For some reason, whenever the subject of the “Doomsday Clock” comes up I immediately think of a song called ‘The Merry Minuet’. It might be pushing 70+ years but not much has changed except for some of the names. As long as there are people the yearning for doomsday will exist.
They’re rioting in Africa
They’re starving in Spain
There’s hurricanes in Florida
And Texas needs rain
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls
The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch
And I don’t like anybody very much!!
But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For man’s been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud
And we know for certain that some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off
And we will all be blown away!!
They’re rioting in Africa
There’s strife in Iran
What nature doesn’t so to us
Will be done by our fellow man
Cheers!
Max
Last heard Circa 1965, performed by the Kingston Trio I believe it was the Hungry I.
See also, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel.
So Putin’s deployment of hypersonic nuclear missiles did not get a mention?
That should tell you what this clock is actually used for.
Hypersonic nuclear missiles are nothing new. I think it was the announcement of hypersonic cruise missiles. Still not sure why those are scarier than other cruise missiles.
One thing is celar about much of Russia’s arsenal: Like most things Russian nuclear, those missiles are more of a danger to the engineers, operators, and launchers than to their target.
Well, you can’t call them back.
It will really be something to see on the day the Doomsday Clock reaches 12 o’clock with the usual line up of scientific drongos on each side of it and suddenly the Big Cuckoo flies out of it and shouts, “April Fool, April Fool”.
They need a whole clock to play with just in case they feel safe next year with Bernie in the WH.
I will be in the mountains somewhere in an undisclosed location in that case…
The ‘miserabists’ — and gawd don’t they look it — can’t go ‘safer’ now because CC™ is an eternal crisis, so they now employ what looks like an adaption of Zeno’s paradoxes.
It is not “climate change” that threatens our existence on earth, but rather what the greenies want to do to prevent the threat.
The Mayans were more scientific than these advertisement events.
The Mayans were right more often as well.
As a Cold War warrior I recall not losiing any sleep during the Cuban missile crisis.
Read One Minute To Midnight (about the Cuban Missile Crisis) you will realise you should’ve been worried!
The “Bulletin” of the atomic scientists is currently edited by one John Mecklin who holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Indiana University and a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Quite the atomic scientist! Both he and the other leftists associated with BAS, at least those who are still alive, have lived their lives in comfort and security in the United States of America thanks to our armed forces and energy industries, whom Mecklin and his ilk thumb their noses at. Ignore the ungrateful pretenders who, to use Pauli’s dismissive term, “are not even wrong”.
Psychology! That’s all you need to know.
Interestingly, suicide rates are going through the roof in the US due to the failing of Psychology to embrace reality and prescribe the proper solution to the crisis. Instead, they are out promoting leftists drivel as the solution ….. and the results speak for themselves.
..and yet they are medicating kids….kids are committing suicide…young adults are not having children….giving up because they are convinced they have no future…on and on
Wow! Just looking at the ups and downs of that doomsday tracker graph, I’d say humanity has had more escapes than Houdini.
(and as it turned out, what got ol Harry in the end was a trick he hadn’t even contemplated. Humanity will probably go in a similar fashion IMO.
And as Mark Twain observed – “I’ve had many troubles in my life, but most of them never happened”. True dat!)
They only have a quarter of the clock. Have they already determined that they can’t go back any mote than 15 minutes or will ther add the other pieces and go back 1/2 an hour if necessary?
Can you try that again in English?
Jeff Alberts
Perfectly clear to me,
“back any mote than 15 minutes or will ther add the other pieces and go back 1/2 an hour if necessary?”
Really?
Can you decipher the above?
If you seriously don’t believe that the closest we had to midnight was October 1962, you’re a deluded fool.
Since I´m not a deluded fool I totally agree with you, London247. The Cuban Missile Crisis could easily have resulted in a Mutually Assured Destruction exchange between Russia and the USA. It almost looks like we’re trying to sneak up on that possibility again, maybe with some fanatical terrorists thrown in for good measure. Climate Change? Not so much.
Stopping nuclear war is like putting on the brakes in a racing car; a small number of actions can have a immediate effect – once a reduction of nuclear weapons is agreed, it can happen quickly. (Yes, this needs monitoring to make sure everyone is doing it).
Stopping climate change is like slowing down the Titanic as it steams towards the iceberg. We should have started slowing down a long time ago, now it may be too late to avoid the impact. Doesn’t help that there’s a fight going on in the wheelhouse about whether we need to or not.
The Titanic analogy is an old one, but new research makes it an ironic one for climate change. This suggests that the Titanic was going very fast because burning coal in the coal bunkers was being shovelled around the clock into the fire boxes of the engines to minimise fire danger to the ship. The captain had the choice between slowing down, and running out of coal before reaching New York (embarrassing for the great new ship full of millionaires to get stuck off-shore) or keep going fast and risk hitting an iceberg. When it did hit, the Titanic may have sunk because the vaunted internal bulkheads had been weakened by the fire, and failed. So, burning coal did it.
Tom in your analogy the icebergs should be melted due to the global warming 😉
Yep, they should have throw all the burning coal overboard, where it would have heated the water and melted the icebergs. But they would have run out of steam before they reached New York.
Of course the analogy was about immediate v future threats and fast v slow reactions. I should have put the irony of burning coal as a contributing factor to the Titanic sinking in a separate post.
I’d love to know who came up with that theory, because it has to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read.
1) Fire in the bunkers was a well known risk and preventative measures were designed in. Everything from air tight doors on the bunkers to water to flood the coal bunkers.
2) The Titanic sunk because the water tight walls did not extend all the way to the upper decks. When the first three compartments were flooded, the front of the tilted down, this allowed the incoming water to flood over the top of the barriers.
3) By the time the water got anywhere close to the coal bunkers, the ship was already lost.
4) If the bunkers had gotten as hot as you believe, there would have been a steam explosion that would have blown the ship apart when the water reached those bunkers.
PS: There is no climate change to stop.
Actually, I should say that there is no man made climate change that needs to be stopped.
Tom, try to monitor North Korea and Iran.
@ur momisugly Ron Long. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was before I was born. But I have seen the newsreels and here in 2020 it scares the bejeezus out of me.
Hey and I grew up in the UK in the 80’s with “Protect and Survive”.
My thoughts exactly.
Actually it was September of 1983. We were saved by Stanislov Petrov
@Goggles, that was a near one in 1983 with “Operation Archer” in progress at the time.
Stanislavsky Petrov’s name should be remembered and a statue of him in every major capital city. As it if we’re not this mans decisions and actions the MAD would have ceased to have been a doctrine and become reality
But I still say October 1962 was closer by a second or two.
There were a few other events:
Oct 5, 1960. Radar returns off the moon trigger NORAD into believing dozens of incoming ICBMs are on the way. So called “moonrise over Norway.”
Nov 9, 1979. War game tape mistakenly loaded into NORAD computer warned of sub launches. This one got jets scrambled.
Jun 3, 1980. NORAD. 2,200 inbound ICBMs. This one got everything scrambled. Cause was a faulty chip.
Sept 26, 1983. Soviet warning system 5 US ICBMs inbound. Satellite reflection off clouds.
Circa Jan 1991. There was an internal discussion following the first Gulf War by the Russians that concluded there was no way they could compete with the US based on what they just watched us do their equipment in Saddam’s military. There were no small number of people arguing loose the hounds of war as their chances of winning would never be greater.
And yet the Union of Concerned Scientists never caught any of these nor did they retroactively update their clock based on these. Nice gig if you can get it. Cheers –
Saddam didn’t have the best Soviet equipment. T55s, T62s, T72s, were not top of the line in 1991. I can only imagine the aircraft were of similar inadequacy.
Jets weren’t all that bad. Most of them Mig-21 / Su-22. There were some Mig-25 / -29 in the mix. Wiki has 44 of them shot down. 137 escape to Iran.
Ground order of battle was more problematic, with around 4,500 tanks, 4,000 APCs, 3,000 towed and self propelled arty pieces. For some silly reason, they turned their tanks into static arty positions, dug them in so they were able to be destroyed at night. Cheers –
And then there’s training, the will to fight, etc. All of those seemed to be lacking.
The Doomsday Clock is “maintained” by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. The Union of Concerned Scientists is a completely different group of leftist morons.
Neither is a science based organization.
Agreed, London247. It is the height of lunacy to think we are currently in a larger existential threat now due to “climate change” than we were during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
With so few seconds left on the clock it will now cost you two Jerry Browns and Greta to get your advocacy pitch placed on the big board. However, there will be some new slots available for more affordable ad placements when we make the move to microsecond intervals next year.
“World Health Organization declares coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern”
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/30/health/coronavirus-who-public-health-emergency-international-concern-declaration/index.html
Must be true if claimed by the WHO.
Wait a minute, didn’t the WHO say in 2015 before COP 21,
“WHO calls for urgent action to protect health from climate change – Sign the call
“The evidence is overwhelming: climate change endangers human health. Solutions exist and we need to act decisively to change this trajectory.”
Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General
Climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century.”
https://www.who.int/globalchange/global-campaign/cop21/en/
Hmmmm, hold that Doomsday Clock.
It takes 7 days from the onset of symptoms to the onset of pneumonia which happens in 20% of cases.
There is currently 6000 pneumonia cases so there was already 30k symptomatic cases 1 week ago.
Its a good time to be young.
The proper name for this flim flam prop should be “The Hobgoblin Clock” The menace is du jour but the clock, like herpes, is forever.
We’ve reached DEFCON 2 twice, first during the Cuban Missile Crisis and again during the Gulf War. DEFCON 3 during the Yom Kippur War which is when Israel reportedly lost a nuclear bomb.
Do I feel more safe today than during those events? Absolutely. Not even close. Is the world in more immediate danger today due to Climate Change? Not even in the same league.
So they are ‘Atomic Scientists’ who are experts in AGW/CC too? Wow, they must be some mighty smart folks…or at least in their arrogance they think they are.
These nutbags that claim doom is nigh are the same sort that would like to be reincarnated as a virus to reduce the human population. They want to kill off a whole lot of us, but they want to leverage the scare first.
Given the current corona virus hype, Prince Phillip should take this as his last best opportunity as a shot at viral reincarnation … he has only a few weeks to go away and come back before peak infection so he should leave his body behind as soon as reasonable planning permits.
A “second” in this scenario corresponds to no real time-value. Nor could it. It’s the same as saying, “We’ve scared ourselves! Here’s a graphic of how scared we are!”
These statements are not motivated by a desire for doomsday, but a warning against it. If after previous warnings, doomsday didn’t come, that’s a good thing!
We did come fairly close to a nuclear war, and fortunately avoided it. If the warnings about the potential consequence for humans helped, good. (The planet would have and will survived, just without us, at least in the form of our current civilisation. We would have been the dinosaurs to some future birds).
I don’t think the difference in nature or time-scale of dangers is a valid argument against such warnings, though it is clearly easier to motivate action if the danger is imminent than if is slow moving. The latter does give us more time to defuse it, but also more time to come up with excuses to avoid facing up to it.
Finally, ‘do you feel like climate change will burn your town to a crisp one day’? Poorly worded. What I feel is that climate change is producing new global conditions that will make it much more likely that my town will burn to a crisp, not one day, but possibly tomorrow (43 degrees and high wind forecast today). For some people, it has just happened.
Perhaps an analogy would be ‘do you feel like government regulation change will ruin your business one day’? If that happened, then the extra regulation itself would set the new global conditions; the direct cause of business failure would be all the downstream negative impacts on your business and income.
Look up the fable of The Boy who cried Wolf.
Tom, if you need a better doomsday warning than your fabled Titanic story read the Bible.
“Finally, ‘do you feel like climate change will burn your town to a crisp one day’? Poorly worded. What I feel is that climate change is producing new global conditions that will make it much more likely that my town will burn to a crisp, not one day, but possibly tomorrow (43 degrees and high wind forecast today). For some people, it has just happened.”
Do you have any evidence that anything unprecedented is happening?
I don’t think the difference in nature or time-scale of dangers is a valid argument against such warnings
Tom, they’re claiming we’re closer to Doomsday due to a “danger” that is centuries away (and which can simply be adapted to as and when the need arises) than we were at the height of the cold war when “nuclear war” was a imminent threat (such as during the Cuban Missile Crisis). The warning is entirely disproportionate to the dangers due to it’s nature and time-scales of each which makes their warnings a joke.
Finally, ‘do you feel like climate change will burn your town to a crisp one day’? Poorly worded. What I feel is that climate change is producing new global conditions that will make it much more likely that my town will burn to a crisp, not one day, but possibly tomorrow (43 degrees and high wind forecast today). For some people, it has just happened
That’s not climate change, that’s weather (couple with a failure to properly manage the fuel loads in forests due to bad eco policies). It’s happened before (many, many, many times before) and, sorry to break it to you, it will happen again regardless of whether man stops all CO2 emissions right now or continues emissions at their current (or even greater) rates. That you can’t tell the difference between climate and weather shows how ignorant you are on the subject.
From the article: “Climate change that could devastate the planet is undeniably happening.”
The people in charge at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists should stop telling this lie to the public.
Well Brexit today. That has got to be worth 3 minutes towards ‘safe’.