Doomsday Clock Pushed ahead

[fpkjr]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The scientists who mind the Doomsday Clock moved it two minutes closer to midnight on Wednesday -- symbolizing the annihilation of civilization and adding the perils of global warming for the first time.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which created the Doomsday Clock in 1947 to warn the world of the dangers of nuclear weapons, advanced the clock to five minutes until midnight. It was the first adjustment of the clock since 2002.
"We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age," the bulletin's board of directors said in a statement.
They pointed to North Korea's first nuclear test, Iran's nuclear ambitions, U.S. flirtation with "bunker buster" nuclear bombs, the continued presence of 26,000 American and Russian nuclear weapons and inadequate security for nuclear materials.
But the scientists also said destruction of human habitats wreaked by climate change brought on by human activities is a growing danger.
"Global warming poses a dire threat to human civilization that is second only to nuclear weapons," they said.
The announcement was made in news conferences in London and Washington.
"We foresee great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change," theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge, a member of the bulletin's board of sponsors, told reporters in London.
'VILLAGE IDIOTS'
Cambridge astrophysicist Martin Rees added that while the Cold War confrontation between two nuclear-armed superpowers is over, the world is closer than ever to having nuclear bombs used in a localized war or by terrorists in a city center.
"A global village will have its village idiots," Rees said.
Kennette Benedict, the bulletin's executive director, dismissed the notion that by touting the threat posed by global warming, the scientists had diluted their message about the nuclear peril.
Many scientists predict dire consequences from global warming, including higher sea levels that over time could swamp coastal regions, more severe storms and worse wildfires. Human activities like burning of fossil fuels contribute to warming, they contend.
Physicist Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland said if humankind fails to change course on global warming, "there's a great possibility that the Earth in the year 2100 will only dimly resemble our planet today -- and as it has existed over the past 500,000 years."
The bulletin's scientists moved the clock two minutes forward in 2002, to seven minutes until midnight, following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
The bulletin was founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had worked on developing the first nuclear bomb, and it is now overseen by some of the world's most prominent scientists.
The bulletin created the clock in 1947, two years after the United States ushered in the nuclear age by dropping atomic bombs on two Japanese cities at the end of World War Two, to symbolize the urgent nuclear dangers confronting the world.
It now stands at the closest to midnight since 1984, when it was three minutes to midnight amid a deepening Cold War.
It has been adjusted 18 times in 60 years. It was set as close as two minutes to midnight in 1953 after the United States and Soviet Union tested hydrogen bombs, and as far as 17 minutes to midnight in 1991 at the Cold War's end.

[Demented]

Global Warming!... GLOBAL WARMING!...

Over the last few million years, there have been what, 3 or 4 major glacial periods or Ice Ages. Yet most people think The Ice Age as if this has only happened once.

My question is this…

If the polar caps have melted flooding the earth time and again before a major part of the planet was covered with ice, before the cycle started again. And man has had nothing to do with this happening over and over again.

Why do we believe we are the cause of this cycle repeating itself?

Has man has become so arrogant as to believe his actions are the cause of a natural process, that has been reoccurring since time before man was on the face of this rock?

[Bigd417]

Originally Posted by Demented

Global Warming!... GLOBAL WARMING!...

Over the last few million years, there have been what, 3 or 4 major glacial periods or Ice Ages. Yet most people think The Ice Age as if this has only happened once.

My question is this…

If the polar caps have melted flooding the earth time and again before a major part of the planet was covered with ice, before the cycle started again. And man has had nothing to do with this happening over and over again.

Why do we believe we are the cause of this cycle repeating itself?

Has man has become so arrogant as to believe his actions are the cause of a natural process, that has been reoccurring since time before man was on the face of this rock?

It's obvious that it is all the heat generated by cigar smoking that has caused global warming. At least the benefit is worth the cost.

[fpkjr]

In 1947 Global Warming wasn't part of the equation. Nuclear winter was.
Whether you believe in Global Warming or not should it be part of the Doomsday Clock? I thought it was developed due to the rise of the Hydrogen bomb and the race which continues to this day and the devastation it could cause worldwide?
I was unaware they adjusted it after Sept.11, 2001. Did they know something we didn't?
Frank

[Hammerhead]

Originally Posted by Demented

Has man has become so arrogant as to believe his actions are the cause of a natural process, that has been reoccurring since time before man was on the face of this rock?

No, just the scientists who want to get their names in the paper.

[TU09]

Originally Posted by Hammerhead

No, just the scientists who want to get their names in the paper.

It amazes me that people buy into what these pop scientists say so quickly just because it pops up on CNN. One of the most important things I learned from my short time working with scientists and engineers on a daily basis is that many will make any claim and manipulate data in the most disgusting ways if it gets their name in print.

[ghostrider]

Originally Posted by TU09

It amazes me that people buy into what these pop scientists say so quickly just because it pops up on CNN.

Majority of people are sheep. If you sound like you know what you're talking about, most people will believe most anything you say. Especially if you quote some "study".

"You can fool some of the people most of the time, and most of the people some of the time."

[iceman95]

Originally Posted by Demented

Global Warming!... GLOBAL WARMING!...

Over the last few million years, there have been what, 3 or 4 major glacial periods or Ice Ages. Yet most people think The Ice Age as if this has only happened once.

My question is this…

If the polar caps have melted flooding the earth time and again before a major part of the planet was covered with ice, before the cycle started again. And man has had nothing to do with this happening over and over again.

Why do we believe we are the cause of this cycle repeating itself?

Has man has become so arrogant as to believe his actions are the cause of a natural process, that has been reoccurring since time before man was on the face of this rock?

Hear! Hear! I couldn't agree more.

[stig]

Originally Posted by fpkjr

In 1947 Global Warming wasn't part of the equation. Nuclear winter was.
Whether you believe in Global Warming or not should it be part of the Doomsday Clock? I thought it was developed due to the rise of the Hydrogen bomb and the race which continues to this day and the devastation it could cause worldwide?
I was unaware they adjusted it after Sept.11, 2001. Did they know something we didn't?
Frank

Well if they would just stop adjusting the damned thing we would be okay.

[TTgirl]

Originally Posted by Demented

My question is this…

If the polar caps have melted flooding the earth time and again before a major part of the planet was covered with ice, before the cycle started again. And man has had nothing to do with this happening over and over again.

Why do we believe we are the cause of this cycle repeating itself?

Has man has become so arrogant as to believe his actions are the cause of a natural process, that has been reoccurring since time before man was on the face of this rock?

My friend, my thoughts exactly. Here's to great minds!

[Commander Quan]

I'm hoping global warming will melt the ice caps I've always wanted some ocean front property here in Ohio.

[Seanohue]

OMG! Now I know what the Iron Maiden song "Two Minutes to Midnight" is about!

[Demented]

The best thing about all this data we're collecting on the decay rate of the polar ice caps…

By the time the next ice age has ended and humanity has once again reached the information age. The data will be long lost and forgotten along with our civilization, and the new and improved scientific minds of the time will start the whole Global Warm… GLOBAL WARMING! Crap again.

[Corona Gigante]

Originally Posted by Demented

Global Warming!... GLOBAL WARMING!...

Over the last few million years, there have been what, 3 or 4 major glacial periods or Ice Ages. Yet most people think The Ice Age as if this has only happened once.

My question is this…

If the polar caps have melted flooding the earth time and again before a major part of the planet was covered with ice, before the cycle started again. And man has had nothing to do with this happening over and over again.

Why do we believe we are the cause of this cycle repeating itself?

Has man has become so arrogant as to believe his actions are the cause of a natural process, that has been reoccurring since time before man was on the face of this rock?

The answer to your question is: because all the available evidence supports that conclusion.

Ice ages come and go over millennia, and for the past 8,000 years, the gradual end of the last ice age has seen a natural increase in worldwide temperatures, all scientists agree. Skeptics have expressed doubt that industrial activity is to blame for world's rapidly rising temperatures.

But records show that for the past 50 years or so, the warming trend has sped up -- due, researchers said, to the atmospheric burden of greenhouse gases produced by everything industrial, from power plants burning fossil fuels to gas-guzzling cars -- and the effects are clear.

"We were stunned by the similarities between the observations that have been recorded at sea worldwide and the models that climatologists made," said Tim Barnett of the University of California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "The debate is over, at least for rational people. And for those who insist that the uncertainties remain too great, their argument is no longer tenable. We've nailed it."

More...

[cigar no baka]

Originally Posted by Demented

Global Warming!... GLOBAL WARMING!...


Has man has become so arrogant as to believe his actions are the cause of a natural process, that has been reoccurring since time before man was on the face of this rock?

Yes, we have.

Yes there is Global Warming.

No, we are not causing it. Mabye adding the cherry to the top of the sundae, but that's not the whole sundae.