Doomsday Deferred: End-of-World Clock Set Back 1 Minute

[villager]

Source: LiveScience

Doomsday Deferred: End-of-World Clock Set Back 1 Minute



The Doomsday Clock has been set back 1 minute for the first time in its 63-year history. In moving the clock from 5 minutes before midnight to 6 minutes before midnight, scientists expressed optimism for humanity's future.

This end-of-the-world clock, set up in 1947, is meant to convey how close we are to the end of the world via catastrophe caused by nuclear weapons or climate change, among other factors.
The Haiti earthquake was not a factor in today's decision.

A news conference announcing the change took place this morning at the New York Academy of Sciences Building in New York City. The actual clock is housed at the Bulletin of Atomic Sciences (BAS) office in Chicago, Ill., and so a representation of the clock was shown at Thursday's news conference.

"We moved it back by just one minute, and what that means is there's great potential for it to move in either direction," Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist on the BAS Board of Sponsors, said at the news conference. Krauss added that for both nuclear weapons and climate change threats there has been "a sea change in attitude, an opening up of possibilities, but not yet a lot of action."Krauss is also at Arizona State University.

The last time the Doomsday Clock minute hand moved was in January 2007, when it was pushed forward by two minutes, from seven to five minutes before midnight. The change was meant to reflect two major sources of potential catastrophe that could bring us closer to "doomsday," according to the board of "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists," a magazine focused on warning the world of the dangers that the invention of the atomic bomb helped to unleash.

According to the board, the looming dangers included: the perils of 27,000 nuclear weapons, 2,000 of them ready to launch within minutes; and the destruction of human habitats from climate change.

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Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20100114/sc_livescience/doomsdaydeferredendofworldclocksetback1minute

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I'm not sure what's changed since 2007 to warrant the one-minute "fall back," but I'll take any shard of optimism where I can!

[meegbear]

1. The first time in its 63-year history?

:shrug:

[HopeHoops]

2. Yeah, I thought it had been at 2 minutes before midnight under Reagan.

Frankly it should have been 1/4 minute before midnight under Reagan.

[villager]

3. Maybe they meant moved back "by a full minute"

That wasn't clear to me either, because unless they started at 11:30 p.m. at the start of the Cold War, I could swear it's (occasionally) been moved back a notch...

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Yeah, towards the end of the article, they say this:

"the biggest jump occurred in 1991 when the minute hand moved seven minutes, from 10 minutes to 17 minutes before midnight".

Quite a misleading lede.

[Brickbat]

4. It's been moved back before, just never by one minute.

Slopping writing and editing.

[Democrats_win]

5. Could they be wrong? Because of the bush depression/wars, we're closer now than ever.

The clock should be two seconds away form midnight. The world is truly falling apart. These guys must work for Wall Street Frauds to think that everything is "just alright."

[Kweli4Real]

6. I wonder ...

If the Obama-haters on the Left and/or the Right will credit PRESIDENT OBAMA with contributing to the reset?

The RW clearly will not; but what is disheartening is the Left will say, "yeah, BUT ..."

[KansDem]

7. Whew! That was close!

I was beginning to wonder there for a minute (or five minutes).

:wipesbrow:

[Ian David]

8. Thank you, President Obama! You bought us another minute!

Of course, the fundies set their Rapture clock ahead an hour last January 21st.

[old mark]

9. Shit! I just bought Rapture tickets! Great seats, too.....

Watch all them christian bodies fly up to their little cabins in the sky....where they can sneer down at the rest of us for eternity.
Think of the fun it would be to be with them forever!

mark

[Ghost Dog]

10. Change in "attitude"

in certain part(s) of the world.

Think about it...

[tinrobot]

11. So when do they build the climate change doomsday clock?

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. This 'minutes to doomsday' is just silly.

Everybody knows it is 2 years, 11 months and 7 days till doomsday.

[The Stranger]

13. I say move the thing forward an hour for daylight savings time.

Let's get it over with.

Fuck it.

[sofa king]

14. I'm pretty sure I know what's changed.

It has something to do with the toilet seats no longer being left up in the White House.

[dipsydoodle]

15. Will this wind...?

End Of The World sketch from the 1979 Secret Policeman's Ball

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hJQ18S6aag

:rofl:

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. A classic

:thumbsup: