Hands of the Doomsday Clock to move Thursday

[nerdgirl 0]

On Thursday, the hands of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist’s Doomsday Clock will be moved. The clock has been at 5 minutes to midnight since 2007. The closest to midnight it’s been is 2 minutes in 1953 after the US & USSR first detonated/tested thermonuclear weapons.

“The Doomsday Clock conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction--the figurative midnight--and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies [this was added in 2007; some folks disagreed w/its inclusion-nerdgirl] and new developments in the life sciences [i.e., genetically engineered biological weapons or unintentional pathogenic organisms-nerdgirl] that could inflict irrevocable harm.” A timeline of the clock’s movement from its inception in 1947 can be found here.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists was founded in in 1945 by scientists and engineers from the Manhattan Project.

So what do you think – does the apparent nuclear program of Iran, DPRK’s two alleged nuclear tests, ending of START, and the renaissance in nuclear energy (w/accompanying reprocessing risks) mean the clock should be moved closer to midnight? Or why not?

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[mnealtx 0]

While I'm hoping it will move back, I think that it will probably move forward due to DPRK/Iran.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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While I'm hoping it will move back, I think that it will probably move forward due to DPRK/Iran.

and Pakistan

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[lawrocket 3]

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“The Doomsday Clock conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction--the figurative midnight--and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies [this was added in 2007; some folks disagreed w/its inclusion-nerdgirl] and new developments in the life sciences [i.e., genetically engineered biological weapons or unintentional pathogenic organisms-nerdgirl] that could inflict irrevocable harm.” A timeline of the clock’s movement from its inception in 1947 can be found here.

When they add other factors to consider it would not be for the purpose of moving it back. Coming on the heels of the climate summit, discord in the middle east, etc., I cannot see them moving the hand back.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[champu 1]

What was the clock supposed to have read, say, before the advancements in understanding of nuclear physics made in the 1930s? 11pm? Noon? Maybe it was the day before and the start of the Manhattan Project was the beginning of the "day" we are [thankfully] stuck in.

And why has it never been 8 minutes to midnight? It's been 7 minutes five times! And 9 minutes twice! Are they trying to tell me with all that dancing around it's never been not quite as bad as it was in '47, '60, '68, '80, or '02 and yet slightly worse than it was in '74 or '98? Is this a quantum doomsday clock that's missing an energy band at 11:52pm?

[wolfriverjoe 1,366]

Iran, North Korea and Pakistan (primarily the unrest there) all point to closer.

I'm not sure I would exclude "climate-changing technologies".
Although they wouldn't seem to apply, the disruptions that would accompany any serious climate change (man-made or not) could have more potential for conflicts than anything in the Cold War.

What would happen if the temp in India rose beyond habitable levels? Would 1 billion Indians just sit there and roast? Or would they move north? Like into Pakistan and China.

And how would they react? And so on and so on.

I'm not sure that START has that much effect. Although Russia's recent behaviors are pretty scary, (particularly their apparent willingness to target specific indivduals) I don't see a real nuke threat from them, directly or indirectly. Too many consequences. Too much cost. Yes, they are developing new missle technology, but that is more evolutionary, and has non-military applications.
Even without START, I don't see either Russia or the US wasting the time, effort or money on another arms race.

Edit to fix bad wording

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"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[Belgian_Draft 0]

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What was the clock supposed to have read, say, before the advancements in understanding of nuclear physics made in the 1930s? 11pm? Noon? Maybe it was the day before and the start of the Manhattan Project was the beginning of the "day" we are [thankfully] stuck in.

And why has it never been 8 minutes to midnight? It's been 7 minutes five times! And 9 minutes twice! Are they trying to tell me with all that dancing around it's never been not quite as bad as it was in '47, '60, '68, '80, or '02 and yet slightly worse than it was in '74 or '98? Is this a quantum doomsday clock that's missing an energy band at 11:52pm?

That's what I have often wondered. Where would the clock be at back in the stone age? 12:00 noon? 11:30 PM? I'm sure somebody somewhere knows.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[wayneflorida 0]

Time to go rent:
Dr. Strangelove :or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb.

Again

Personally I think the clock will be moved back. The
President did say he was going to reduce our nukes.

[JohnRich 4]

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Personally I think the clock will be moved back. The
President did say he was going to reduce our nukes.

So you believe that if one side disarms, that the other side will no longer wish to attack?

What if when one side disarms and becomes weaker, that encourages the other side to attack?

[lurch 0]

That makes sense with a guys-with-guns situation but geopolitics is a little different. Somehow I doubt reducing our arsenal from 2,768 nukes to ONLY 1,934 is going to encourage our enemies to go "They're helpless now! Allahu Akbar! Death to America! Attack!!!!"
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[riddler 0]

The doomsday clock is historically linked with nuclear proliferation. However, I suspect that this time, they are going greener, and will probably cite climate change and other environmental factors as the primary reasons for the change.

Terrorism is scary and has proven it can kill many thousands of people, but doubtful it will result in the destruction of all mankind. Environmental degradation is more likely to kill us all.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[pbwing 0]

It's interesting that 2 of the event speakers are from India and Pakistan.

Will that be the center point of the move? Does the BAS feel that Indo-Pakistani relations have improved since the last move of the clock?

The last move was contributed to Iran and North Korea as well as climate change. What has changed since 2007 that has precipitated the move on Thursday?

[pirana 0]

Maybe they're adopting Doomsday Savings Time. They'll move the clock back 1 hour until global temperatures start going back down.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[pirana 0]

Maybe they are going to move it back due to the recent uptick in pirates.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[1969912 0]

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Maybe they're adopting Doomsday Savings Time. They'll move the clock back 1 hour until global temperatures start going back down.

Post of the Decade Award!

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[FlyingJ 0]

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Terrorism is scary and has proven it can kill many thousands of people, but doubtful it will result in the destruction of all mankind. Environmental degradation is more likely to kill us all.

Not to mention, while terrorism has been something new on the minds of your average American in the last 10 years, it's hardly something new for much of the world.

Killing threads since 2004.

[champu 1]

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It's interesting that 2 of the event speakers are from India and Pakistan.

Will that be the center point of the move? Does the BAS feel that Indo-Pakistani relations have improved since the last move of the clock?

Given the Mumbai attacks in 2008 and the fairly recent Indian Prime Minster's comments about his disappointment in Pakistan, I'd find it hard to believe Indo-Pakistani relations have improved in the last two years.

[pbwing 0]

True. But that's a far cry from outright clashes in Kashmir and testing nuclear weapons.

Even with Mumbai and some minor sabre rattling, the relations have taken a back burner to Pakistan's issues in their western frontier.

[ryoder 1,406]

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Time to go rent:
Dr. Strangelove :or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb.

Again

Quote

Survival kit contents check. In them you'll find: one forty-five caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days' concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; one hundred dollars in rubles; one hundred dollars in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair of nylon stockings. Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[FreeflyChile 0]

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On Thursday, the hands of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist’s Doomsday Clock will be moved. The clock has been at 5 minutes to midnight since 2007. The closest to midnight it’s been is 2 minutes in 1953 after the US & USSR first detonated/tested thermonuclear weapons.

“The Doomsday Clock conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction--the figurative midnight--and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies [this was added in 2007; some folks disagreed w/its inclusion-nerdgirl] and new developments in the life sciences [i.e., genetically engineered biological weapons or unintentional pathogenic organisms-nerdgirl] that could inflict irrevocable harm.” A timeline of the clock’s movement from its inception in 1947 can be found here.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists was founded in in 1945 by scientists and engineers from the Manhattan Project.

So what do you think – does the apparent nuclear program of Iran, DPRK’s two alleged nuclear tests, ending of START, and the renaissance in nuclear energy (w/accompanying reprocessing risks) mean the clock should be moved closer to midnight? Or why not?

/Marg

I have a few questions about this (that I didn't see from a quick scan of some of the links Marg posted):

1) What does the time actually mean? As in, I know that this group moving the clock closer to midnight means they feel there's an increased likelihood of nuclear annihiliation, but what does 3 minutes mean vs. 4 minutes or 5 minutes?

2) If the clock is to indicate 'catastrophic destruction' - shouldn't really only the changes made by the 'heavy hitter' countries matter? If Pakistan has 1 nuke, and they use it, it sucks for the target but it's not catastrophic to humanity.

3) If full-scale, Fallout 3-style nuclear war happens, will one of these guys have the dedication to stay at the office and change the clock to midnight?

[DanG 1]

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3) If full-scale, Fallout 3-style nuclear war happens, will one of these guys have the dedication to stay at the office and change the clock to midnight?

That should be Fallout 3 expansion pack mission.

- Dan G

[RonD1120 58]

I think it will move back. I dunno why, just a gut feeling and nothing to do with my faith.

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[champu 1]

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1) What does the time actually mean? As in, I know that this group moving the clock closer to midnight means they feel there's an increased likelihood of nuclear annihiliation, but what does 3 minutes mean vs. 4 minutes or 5 minutes?

This is what I was getting at with my first post. I need a cal factor.

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3) If full-scale, Fallout 3-style nuclear war happens, will one of these guys have the dedication to stay at the office and change the clock to midnight?

And that's another thing, the clock doesn't actually move on its own power. How far away it is from midnight is largely inconsequential if it's not running. It doesn't take any longer for someone to manually move the hands to midnight from 11:50 than it does from 11:55*

* note: this actually remains within the metaphor better than I had intended. (i.e. I find the idea of slowly drifting on a mechanical course into nuclear war highly unlikely.)

[nerdgirl 0]

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It's interesting that 2 of the event speakers are from India and Pakistan.

Will that be the center point of the move? Does the BAS feel that Indo-Pakistani relations have improved since the last move of the clock?

Interesting observation. I hadn't really thought about that. Both are important, particularly concerns regarding Pakistan's nuclear arsenal; it would surprise me if it was the driving factor.

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The last move was contributed to Iran and North Korea as well as climate change. What has changed since 2007 that has precipitated the move on Thursday?

My speculation is all those will still be factors that could push for moving closer to midnight, along with DPRK's 2nd underground test, Iran's announcement (begrudgingly) of the Qom enrichment facility, end of START without a follow-on treaty, CTBT still not ratified, lack of movement forward on the IAEA nuclear fuel bank (as a way to limit proliferation risk associated with nuclear energy 'renaissance') and failure of the Copenhagen treaty. As factors for moving further from midnight, the "road to zero" movement to reduce nuclear stockpiles and all those factors that the Nobel Prize Committee cited for awarding Pres Obama the Peace Prize.

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[nerdgirl 0]

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... while terrorism has been something new on the minds of your average American in the last 10 years, it's hardly something new for much of the world.

You're very right w/r/t conventional terrorism. I suspect that the folks at BAS are thinking about nuclear or biological terrorism rather than conventional terrorism, but I might be wrong.

Otoh, a few years back I remember being at a meeting in San Francisco, at which one of the speakers, Chris Chyba, challenged a number of folks who were on a panel with him, including former SecDef McNamara (i.e., Chyba’s a bit of an iconoclast), that much of the world doesn’t consider nuclear terrorism a real threat. For much of the global south, for example, there are other problems (disease, clean water, corruption) that are much more threatening and critical and at the same time, they don’t perceive themselves as being likely targets as Washington and Moscow do.

Last fall, I was at Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) – it’s like the IAEA & NPT-executing body but for chemical weapons – one of the most interesting conversations, among many (that I get to define as subjectively interesting) was with delegates from South Africa and Philippines. Along with a UK staffer, we were talking about differing perceptions internationally of the relative risk of biological weapons. The South African noted that he considered chemicals a much bigger threat than biologicals. The Philippine delegate concurred. The situation is (generally) the inverse in the US and UK.

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying