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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Ever had one of those auto-adjusting atomic time-source clocks when they don’t work properly? Frustrating.
They’re behind the times (or is it too far forward?). Probably forgot the leap years. And always miss daylight saving time adjustments.
Maybe the ones with their fingers on the clock are just a bunch of ‘little hen peckers’. The sky is falling, chicken and egg question, political operatives, or just simply neurotic jellyfish. Hey …. we live in an era where anything goes!
Tracking the Doomsday Clock. Ignoring that it always was a terrible idea, the clock metaphor, but looking back, how accurately did it reflect anything? Did it measure the fear of atomic war in the population? People were building bomb shelters, school children were learning to hide underneath desks. Since then we know that people have a very poor sense of risks. They fear some safe things, they have no fear of some unsafe things. Did it measure the actual risks? We know there were several alarms which turned out to be false, and which could have been catastrophic. Did the clock take into account the possible glitches and human errors and misunderstandings? Are we lucky to still be alive? Is it just a matter of time before there is a fatal glitch?
But to add climate change, that’s going too far. The clock says 100 seconds. Greta says 12 years. Therefore, 1 year is about 10 seconds. Extrapolating clock movement over the past decade, the end of the world (doomsday) is in about five years, 2025. It’s worse than we thought.