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Doomsday Clock at the shortest distance to midnight ever

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Re: Doomsday Clock at the shortest distance to midnight ever

#11

Post by dhosek »

oh_sigh wrote: post #5

The Doomsday Clock is a PR piece for a group of politicized scientists. The threat of a nuclear catastrophe is higher now than it was during the Cuban missile crisis? That doesn't ring true.

It's not just nuclear catastrophe that's being measured.

>"Midnight" has a deeper meaning to it besides the constant threat of war. There are various things taken into consideration when the scientists from The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists decide what Midnight and "global catastrophe" really mean in a particular year. They might include "politics, energy, weapons, diplomacy, and climate science"

Re: Doomsday Clock at the shortest distance to midnight ever

#13

Post by makerofspoons »

While originally the Clock represented the threat of the power struggle between superpowers, it's important to note that factors such as climate change and bioterrorism are now factored into setting the Clock. The Clock's current position was explained as follows:

'On 23 January 2020, the Clock was moved further, to 100 seconds (1 minute 40 seconds) before midnight, meaning that the Clock's status today is the closest to midnight since the Clock's start in 1947. The Bulletin' executive chairman, Jerry Brown, said "the dangerous rivalry and hostility among the superpowers increases the likelihood of nuclear blunder... Climate change just compounds the crisis".'

I think many can appreciate that the lack of appreciable action on climate change is at least as worrisome as the the threat of a nuclear exchange and it is looking increasingly likely we will miss our 1.5-2 degree targets.

Re: Doomsday Clock at the shortest distance to midnight ever

#14

Post by frozenport »

dhosek wrote: post #10
anakaine wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the clock is almost always midnight, surely we are either on the cusp, or the time is set incorrectly. Although there are many things wrong I'd argue that we are nowhere near as bad off as during the peak of the cold war, for example.

I'd argue that with climate change, we're worse off than during the cold war. At least during the cold war, no one was arguing that nuclear annihilation wasn't a problem.

There were hawks arguing you could go a lot farther without triggering nuclear war. Early in the war there was a belief that soviet bombers could be shot down before hitting mainland US targets.

Re: Doomsday Clock at the shortest distance to midnight ever

#17

Post by [deleted] »

kaonashi wrote: post #7
bArray wrote: post #2

How seriously should this be taken? It doesn't feel as if we're much closer than we have been?

Virus pandemics affecting global trade, climate change is starting to build steam and become irreversible, right-wing ethnocentric parties are taking over in much of the developed world. How can you not take it seriously?

[deleted]

Re: Doomsday Clock at the shortest distance to midnight ever

#20

Post by mc32 »

eplanit wrote: post #6

It's time to heed the calls to finally retire the theater of the clock. Its symbolic meaning has been stretched too far: 1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/time-to-stop-the-doomsday-clock... 2. https://thefederalist.com/2016/01/27/retire-the-doomsday-clo... 3. https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2018/01/26/why_its...

Side note, I think they used the wrong gauge for the metaphor. An hourglass gives a better sense of time “running out” a fuel gauge also does a better job than cyclical pointers (that have no natural end)
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