Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Turns Back Doomsday Clock, Gives Us An Extra Minute To Live

Great job people!

That looks more like 8.5 minutes to midnight, but I get it.

--GTO--

YES!

Sorry Stu, but the girlfriend will probably just want to cuddle for that extra minute. I suppose it can't hurt to ask, though.....

Not that the Doomsday Clock represents anything other than the opinions of the liberal Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, but I thought it was supposed to measure the threat of nuclear annihilation. I guess the BAS is selectively ignoring the instability in Pakistan and the ongoing development of nuclear weapons in the rogue states of Iran and North Korea. Iran is particularly worrisome because its leaders are the major state sponsors of terrorism in the world and directly involved in the killing of Americans in Lebanon and Iraq. Nukes in the hands of terrorists would be an unimaginably dire threat (as opposed to the global warming "threat" which is imaginary).

Rebuttal to laurenra7:

1. The Pakistan/N. Korea/Iran threat is a relative constant.

2. Obama wants to Mirandize all terrorists; nobody believes he is remotely ever going to consider using The Bomb.

3. Isn't the movie Avatar worth another minute on the clock?

I look forward to 1 past midnight myself

1. Nukes in the hands of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-il is a relative constant? Rogue states and terrorists have never had nuclear weapons. Terrorists don't think like us; they don't comprehend mutual assured destruction, détente or diplomacy.

2. Exactly. Appeasement works with civilized nations. To terrorists it's a weakness to be exploited which--guess what?--increases the likelihood of an attack.

3. Like Avatar, the Doomsday Clock is entertaining, but it doesn't mean anything.

1. revision - the perceived threat of any of those groups getting a nuke is a constant. Their desire to get one hasn't changed. I guess you can argue that as time goes on, they should get closer to achieving "success", but for the purposes of the BASers, nothing has changed.

2. I think the worry (from the pov of the BASers) is that our President has a nuclear arsenal at his command and could potentially use it. Bush was a "war monger", and might launch. They believe that Obama would never launch, hence more clock time.

3. You mean you haven't packed your bags for a shuttle flight to Pandora yet?! Personally, I'm waiting for the Blue People to come here and give me a USB 3.0 tail so I can talk to oak trees....or something like that.

Since when have we had a doomsday clock?

Since 1947.

The only trouble with science now is that it has become a religion of sorts and thus become subject to opinionated information that has false triggers caused by bias of the tester/s. While the global climate issue that is being spun is getting addressed there are greater issues that should shorten the time span on that clock. One over population. The Human race will starve itself shortly. We Americans are not exempt from this, as our power dwindle so will our ability to enforce great portions of world rations. On that note clean water and food supply I believe will cause strife that could certainly end life. With two countries having the greatest populations in the world and gaining in economic power they will certainly demand more of the ration share. Until those two countries truly address the issue with there outlandish population growth man can't hope to survive. As for other countries that are not as populated if they don't get control of population growth before it is to late and learn from the mistakes of the two billion plus countries then we are doomed anyway.

I keep hearing that science is trying to find more clean water and that we are wondering where all the water went... how bout extreme growth in agriculture. The balance of great plants and livestock also hold some of the water that is "disappearing". Want more no problem cooling plants paprer mills let us not forget our vehicle radiators. The best part of the car radiators is that many people use water that is distillation level of purity.

Anyway we can't make a cleaner planet with more mouths to feed and hands to dirty it. I know people see it as a fundamental right to procreate, but how much procreation should be limited. With the amount of people already in existence people should not be allowed to reproduce more than 2 children, or less to stem the population growth, and of the course of a human life maybe reduce the number.

Fact is there are approximately 6,800,000,000 people on this planet that all believe they deserve to live as well as the next person. While that statement and belief can't be argued it is just not possible. The only solution is to bring population down to a level that can be managed and sustained. A utopian world that has no starving of course will neve be achieved even with that, because there will always be those that demand that they have more.

For the record I am not anti American... I am American though and think that we are close to the point where we should force a population freeze. I know there is a lot more land out there, but that land is not land that can sustain populations.

@xIndr

Population density people/sq mile:
America 84/sq mile
Canada 9 /sq mile
China 365/sq mile
Nigeria 375/sq mile
Macau 73,350/sq mile
Iran 109/sq mile
Sweden 57/sq mile
Ethiopia 173/sq mile
India 954/sq mile
France 289/sq mile

You get the idea. America, Canada and Europe are not the problem. All the third world countries that have the least ability to absorb extra population are the largest and fastest growing. You wish world population control start there, not here.

America is a large nearly empty country Canada even more so. I assume China is one of the two countries, which is the other? Why discuss population control in countries where the people aren't in trouble. While China would not? Why not wait until there is a problem before solving an imagined problem. All of our lives would be better if people would not try to "solve" a problem preemptiviely like your example of global warming.

We produce more food than we can use, we export large amounts. We import simply to have out of season foods year round. Where is the problem?

Most developed nations have a <1% growth rate. The third world countries have higher percentages, they are the least able to handle any increase and they are the fastest increase. Why focus on the developed world which are not growing very fast and forget where the largest population densities exist and the trouble exists?

It does make me curious where these ideas are coming from. Not just you of course from multiple sources but recently increasing. Interesting. Here are google hits by year for the term "population control" notice the large increase.
14,600,00 in 2006
20,400,000 in 2007
22,600,000 in 2008
269,000,000 2009 (using in the last year) 1100% increase from 2008
166,000,000 2009 (using dates) 700% increase from 2008

Interesting indeed.

A blog from Stu with some of my favorite commenters? How could I resist?

Yes, the doomsday clock is a crock; most of us know. I think even Stuart regards it as stupid, at least his tone seems to indicate so.

There's lots of money and votes to be had in scaring people with made up crap about overpopulation, global warming and terrorism. Oddly, the election of Obama has managed to accomplish effectively zero on all of these fronts. Yes, this laughable "clock" should have been moved back a minute.

What about the MASSIVE cyber attack by China? Doesnt that have an impact on national relations?

@thor0997
1 second has just wasted on your comment

why does anyone believe in the nonsense of people induced global warming? It's a crock, always has been, and anybody that believes it is stupid.

President Bush liberated a huge number of Muslims that did not know freedom before. That injects a new, very positive influence into a troubled region of the world.

But President Obama projects weakness. That gives no reason to think we are safer.