Doomsday Clock Now Set at Five Minutes Away From Global Disaster
- Posted on January 11, 2012 at 8:31am by
Liz Klimas
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WASHINGTON (The Blaze/AP) — A group of scientists that tracks the likelihood of a global cataclysm says the world is moving closer to doomsday. One symbolic minute closer to be more precise.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced Tuesday that it has moved its “Doomsday Clock” to five minutes to midnight.
The group says inadequate progress on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and continuing inaction on climate change are the reasons for the change. Watch the announcement:
The clock had been set at six minutes to midnight for the past two years. It was previously set at five minutes to midnight from 2007-2010.
Doomsday clock at five minutes till midnight. (Image: BAS)
The group said in a statement that two years ago, there was reason for optimism “that world leaders might address the truly global threats we face. In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed.”
Scientific American describes the clock as “ a symbol of the threat of humanity’s imminent destruction from nuclear or biological weapons, climate change and other human-caused disasters.” Questions addressed that lead to the group’s decision to move the doomsday clock forward included:
What is the future of nuclear power after Fukushima?; How are nuclear weapons to be managed in a world of increasing economic, political, and environmental volatility?; What are the links among climate change, resource scarcity, conflict, and nuclear weapons?; and, What is required for robust implementation of the Biological Weapons Convention?
Here are some recommendations that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists believe would help lead to a safer world:
- Ratification by the United States and China of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and progress on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty;
- Implementing multinational management of the civilian nuclear energy fuel cycle with strict standards for safety, security, and nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, including eliminating reprocessing for plutonium separation;
- Strengthening the International Atomic Energy Agency’s capacity to oversee nuclear materials, technology development, and its transfer;
- Adopting and fulfilling climate change agreements to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through tax incentives, harmonized domestic regulation and practice;
- Transforming the coal power sector of the world economy to retire older plants and to require in new plants the capture and storage of the CO2 they produce; and
- Vastly increasing public and private investments in alternatives to carbon emitting energy sources, such as solar and wind, and in technologies for energy storage, and sharing the results worldwide.
Since the clock’s creation in 1947 by the board, the closest the clock has ever been set to midnight was 17 minutes in 1991. The farthest the clock has been set is two minutes in 1953. See the full timeline of the doomsday clock here.
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Comments (65)
Nanaswords
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 3:25pmLooks as though there have been many…Peeks and Valleys of time…Just as Told for us in the scriptures. Just to remember…. Jesus Christ said…There will be an end to this Age…Not an END to this earth. No one but our Father God knows the True Time. We are told to Watch for the activity of the earth, and recognize the Earths’ Birth Pains ! It is a Guarantee…It is Not Global Warming ! A continual “Quickening” of both Earthly activities and Mans’ depravity…Are there maybe Just 10 Righteous here on our Earth ? A “New Place ” from Him… Not the NWO of Men !!! NO FEAR !!!
Report Post »TH30PH1LUS
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 5:33pmBrothers and sisters in Jesus: please consider the words of Messiah in the Gospel of Matthew 25:1-13
Report Post »Servant Of YHVH
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 7:10pm“continuing inaction on climate change are the reasons for the change.”
Report Post »Well their credibility just shot to a big fat ZERO!!!
Wartface
Posted on January 12, 2012 at 12:02amFirst they said the world was going into an ice age, been there – done that! Then they claimed it was going to be global warming… That didn’t come to pass, so they pivoted and decided to generalize it and call it Climate Change. That term makes them rights know matter what happens.
If you have enough money you can buy Congress and/or Scientist to make up any bullcrap you want.
Global income redistribution is what this is all about… New World Order stuff.
Report Post »christos
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 2:47pm,,,Easier translation +JESUS+GOD+ Said not even the +HOLY+ Angels know what hour +JESUS+GOD+ will come back these people are Lalapalooza Frauds///////Imagine spending your whole life being a Knowledgeable IDIOT,,,Amazing
Report Post »Jenny Lind
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 2:27pmThey forget one thing-they are not in charge of this world. It’s Creator is.
Report Post »frust@ted
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 2:25pmI think it‘s intersting the global warming doesn’t even get mentioned until 2007. Wonder who was added to the counsel that had to get that put on.
Also this is such a joke. It reminds of the friend you are waiting for that is running late, and they call and tell you I’ll be there in 5 Minutes and then call you in 10 minutes and tell you they are on their way be their in 6 minutes. Time doesn’t go backwards.
This group is a sham pushing fear to push an agenda. They don’t even mention a plauge which I think has the potential to be far more damging then “Climate Change”.
one word craptacular
Report Post »teddrunk
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 3:07pmIn the late 70′s/early 80′s scientists claimed pollution by man was causing global cooling and a coming Ice Age. Today’s science is a joke.
Report Post »rukdnme13
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 7:25pmTo Frust@ted, Remembering back to a magazine called Weekly Reader, early 70′s, Talking about the “new ice age” I was a kid and terrified, right out of the “Report from Iron mountain” Not necessarily credible or provable but believable! Progressive slime!
Report Post »toomuchgovt
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 2:24pmGosh I wish these people would just shsssh up… So the year Obummer was elected they saw optimism, wow if that doesn’t smack of bias. I see they don’t mention anything about Economic destruction. So who funds these people, Soros? They lost all credibility. I agree with TXN4Justice “science camp drama”
Report Post »Rayblue
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 2:10pmThis trick of conscience manipulation should be shelved along with other tighteners of the bowels. The cartoonish premise and overstated doom scenario is downright unswallowable.
Report Post »Why not just keep the “clock” right at midnight. That would create the climate the scientists desire and would keep everyone interested in a state of constant panic wondering from which shadow to run.
Virginia Joe
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 1:32pmSo the “Experts” thought that with The NOBama in the whitehouse the seas would stop rising and the earth would begin the heal.
Report Post »Now they admit that they foolingly bought into NOBamas line BS
MrKnowItAll
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 1:24pmGas, Grass or Ass. No one rides Free!
Report Post »SoupSandwich
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 3:00pmBest bumper sticker ever.
Report Post »quickstudy
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 1:23pmWhat does that even mean? 5 minutes. There are no pre determined set milestones they use to determine their predictions are there? There are no previous global-desasters with which they can apply their scale to test their accuracy is there? Looks to me like some gimmick to get attention to their agenda.
Report Post »Verity58
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 1:16pmnukes were used on 9/11. some day soon the truth will be known.
Report Post »Dustoff
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 1:23pmOMG, buy a brain.
Report Post »goldmind
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 6:01pmNo. Give him a genetic makeover.
Report Post »COFemale
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 1:12pmThe arrogance of man, will be our downfall. It is time to put women in charge.
Report Post »goldmind
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 5:58pmNot a bad idea…but your are at least a century or two too late.
Report Post »moreteaplease
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 1:04pmThis whole climate change thing has been and continues to be nothing more than a scam to bilk more money out of the taxpayers to fund personal projects and stuff political pockets.
Let God take care of the climate. He knows more about it‘s workings since He’s the one who created it. Also, God will be the one to determine when and how the world will end.
Report Post »Qoheleth
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:21pmBack in the day, the Doomsday Clock was limited to the chances of thermonuclear war. It was pure guess-work, of course, and meant to be sensational, and generally motivated toward disarmament. With the addition of “global [something involved with temperatures],” it is now thoroughly guess-work and completely sensational. I‘m thinking I’ll put more stock in the Mayan 2012 end-of-all-things than the Doomsday Clock.
Report Post »Doctor Nordo
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 1:03pmExactly. That such an unscientific thing can be put out by supposed scientists is baffling to me.
Report Post »Dustoff
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 1:27pmJust a bunch of fools trying their darn-est to get noticed.
Report Post »KickinBack
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 3:08pmAt least the Mayans aren’t collecting government research grants and selling magazines.
Report Post »goldmind
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:18pmMama Natural, I still maintain my faith in you. Please don’t let rogue mankind, bring about the planet’s demise. Deliver unto us, a meteor so big, it will split the planet in half. A tsunami, to swallow the avarice and self indulgence. Bend and break the minds of these weasels who govern with deceit, and an insatiable lust for power. Freeze one and all in a blanket of perpetual ice. And if there is a god who plans to retool creation, leave humans out of the equation. Thay have been a dismal failure, and a sore disappointment to you..
Report Post »TomFerrari
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:36pmPlease speak for yourself when praying to your giant rock.
Report Post »As a human who strives to live a life of Godly virtue, I resent being lumped in with those whom YOU have judged to be a “dismal failure.”
;)
goldmind
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 3:57pmTommy…those who dwell in the delusional houses of worship, are the primary instruments of civilization’s decline. Religion is much more then an opiate, it also gels most significant conflicts in the world today. Prophets, Rabbis, Priests and Ministers, are the pimps for political and power whores around the globe. Assuming god created you in his/her image, why would you need some bible or koran pounder, directing your life? If you are in face created in the image of god, you are godly, and certainly don’t need someone telling you to tithe 10%, or strap on an explosive vest. Are you sure god didn’t say he/she created you, in the image of sheep? Most who comply with religious teachings, certainly act more like sheep, than children of their chosen deities. That aside, my comment was about Nature. A power I know, and have seen perform miracles and calamities in real time. Thus, it is my hope that man is cheated out of his quest to divide, conquer, destroy and deceive. I’m confident, Nature, will deliver the final blow to one of the worst evolutionary disasters in the history of life. Humans.
Report Post »ConservativeChristianB1954
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:02pm“The sky is falling, the sky is falling” Where have we heard this before?
Report Post »junior1971
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:11pmNoah, Jesus, John…..My point would that God will decide what happens to his world, not us! I hope he doesn’t decide that we are not worthy.
Report Post »goldmind
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:20pmJunior…you are not worthy.
Report Post »Michael61
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:55amhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
GLOBAL COOLING was a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere along with a posited commencement of glaciation. This hypothesis had mixed support in the scientific community, but gained temporary popular attention due to a combination of a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s and press reports that did not accurately reflect the scientific understanding of ice age cycles. In contrast to the global cooling conjecture, the current scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth has not durably cooled, but undergone global warming throughout the twentieth century.
J. Murray Mitchell showed as early as 1963 a multidecadal cooling since about 1940.[10] At a conference on climate change held in Boulder, Colorado in 1965, evidence supporting Milankovitch cycles triggered speculation on how the calculated small changes in sunlight might somehow trigger ice ages. In 1966 Cesare Emiliani predicted that “a new glaciation will begin within a few thousand years.” In his 1968 book The Population Bomb, Paul R. Ehrlich wrote “The greenhouse effect is being enhanced now by the greatly increased level of carbon dioxide… [this] is being countered by low-level clouds generated by contrails, dust, and other contaminants… At the moment we cannot predict what the overall climatic results will be of our using the atmosphere as a garbage dump.”[3]
Report Post »Michael61
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:10pmThere was a paper by S. Ichtiaque Rasool and Stephen H. Schneider, published in the journal Science in July 1971. Titled “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate,” the paper examined the possible future effects of two types of human environmental emissions:
greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide;
particulate pollution such as smog, some of which remains suspended in the atmosphere in aerosol form for years.
Greenhouse gases were regarded as likely factors that could promote global warming, while particulate pollution blocks sunlight and contributes to cooling. In their paper, Rasool and Schneider theorized that aerosols were more likely to contribute to climate change in the foreseeable future than greenhouse gases, stating that quadrupling aerosols could decrease the mean surface temperature (of Earth) by as much as 3.5 C. If sustained over a period of several years, they calculated, such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ICE AGE.
Report Post »Michael61
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:16pmThe article emphasized sensational and largely unsourced consequences – “resulting famines could be catastrophic”, “drought and desolation,“ ”the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded”, “droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons,“ ”impossible for starving peoples to migrate,“ ”the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age.”[25]
On October 23, 2006, Newsweek issued a correction, over 31 years after the original article, stating that it had been “so spectacularly wrong about the near-term future” (though editor Jerry Adler claimed that ‘the story wasn’t “wrong” in the journalistic sense of “inaccurate.”‘).[26]
[edit] Other 1970s sources
In the late 1970s there were several popular books on the topic, including The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age.[27]
Report Post »Michael61
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:16pm“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts” – Richard Feynman
Report Post »bgood
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:32amWho really gives a crap? These guys created this silly escapade to draw attention to themselves.
Report Post »It’s like that preacher did last year calling out the end of the world.
Tick, tick, tick …..times running out to get a freaking life!
TXPilot
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:58amThe only “climate change” we have to worry about, is when the Muslims finally get nuclear weapons and start setting them off in various places. I can’t imagine fallout being good for the environment.
Report Post »TomFerrari
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:46pm@TX…
Report Post »At least we will be able to spot the nukes under their hijab.
LOL
TXPilot
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 6:24pm@TOMFERRARI………very true…..”Is that a 50kiloton nuke under your dress, or are you just happy to see me”??
Report Post »MrButcher
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:31amWhat if the “doomsday” occurs at 1:32 instead of 12:00?
Report Post »GoliathOnline
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 4:25pmeither way I’ll be asleep when it does occur
Report Post »discus02
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:25amHow does one store Co2. Please enlighten me!
Report Post »wordweaver
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:39amThere are some folks working on pumping it underground and storing it in rock, as opposed to releasing it into the atmosphere. Sounds expensive to me, with no guarantee of achieving anything longterm.
Report Post »ThoreauHD
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:47pmI guess converting it to oxygen and carbon is out of the question. I’m pretty sure something in nature does that. I think it rhyme’s with rant… grant.. slant.. I dunno. All this “science” stuff you learn in 3rd grade is so hard.
Report Post »SacredHonor1776
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:58pmPumping things underground such as trash or water tends to usually cause earthquakes as faults shift due to the new pressures! Madness…
Report Post »beckyspatflaveredstew
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:57pmIts heavier than air, You can put it in a bucket, and pour it out like water to put out fire.
Report Post »SmallGovBigGuns
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:13amthese are the type of eliteists people always talk about that want to control everyone. keep playing with your paper clock losers. surprised there was nothing about stopping gun manufacturing and ammo sales to citizens….
Report Post »ConservativeChristianB1954
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 12:00pmI agree big time!!!
Report Post »Twinspeedr
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:02amThese guys are clowns, but they are right about the central concept. Unfortunately everyone has been desensitized and are so self-absorbed that they don’t even listen or think anymore.
Here are some of my favorite British conservatives doing what they do best. I thought this was quite apropos for this headline:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5DCFjk_O4w
Report Post »ed0315
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 10:59am“inaction on climate change”??? When this started it had to do with nuclear, now they are including climate change? Now you have just proved to me the clock has stopped.
Report Post »Tom K
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:58am@EDO315: Human caused Climate Change is an Al Gore MYTH / SCAM ! Just stick to the nuclear / biological warfare threat, BUT you could add the Obama Administration neglect of important international issues and threats to your calculations. That might put us at ONE MINUTE ‘TIL MIDNIGHT. Anyone BUT Obama in 2012.
Report Post »Detroit paperboy
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 10:57amI’m kinda diggin this ole climate change, today its 72 and sunny in my little part of Texas….. Gettin on my motorcycle and goin ridin all day long…. Hooo rayyyh for climate change !!!
Report Post »mom4times
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 11:14amfunny u say that…..if your anywhere midland…..you had a white christmas….however….here in upstate ny……there is no snow……none for christmas……….i’m not a climate change goon but from what i heard…..the south may be in for more snow :o
Report Post »sndrman
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 10:56amhmmmmmmmmmmm…five minutes huh….makes me think…..
Report Post »txn4justice
Posted on January 11, 2012 at 10:41amHello Mother, Hello Father, Here I am at Science Camp Drama.
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