Good: Nuclear Doomsday Clock Turned Back; Bad: Board Didn’t Factor In Iran
Tock-tick.
The hands of the Doomsday Clock have been sent back one minute. The alarm is now set to go boom! in six, and not five, minutes. Time enough for one more beer.
It used to be 300 short seconds until The End, but the good people of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) have looked out upon the world and, lo, they have found it less quarrelsome. They see “encouraging progress” in both “key threat areas”: nuclear weapons … and climate change?
Yes, climate change.
The BAS has three boards: A majority of scientists (like top physicists Steven Weinberg, Stephen Hawking, and Freeman Dyson) sit on the external Board of Sponsors; the Science and Security Board, which also has a good share of whitecoats; and the Governing Board — which has at most one scientist (Seth Grae, who runs a company to dispose plutonium). The other Governing Board members are similar in makeup to Jay Harris, the publisher of the far-left Mother Jones.
Here are some members of the Science and Security Board whose backgrounds are not in nuclear weapons or diplomacy (there are 19 members in all):
- James Hansen: He was once seen in an English courtroom advocating vandals be set free because they committed their crimes in the name of the environment. He amusingly called coal transports “death trains.” In Germany.
- Stephen Schneider: This man has taken a keen interest in climate change. Thirty years ago he was sure mankind was ushering in the next ice age. Now he is certain we are causing devastating global warming.
- Robert Socolow: He heads up Princeton’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative. They’re always seeking donations, if you can spare them.
- Lawrence Krauss: An involved guy, he often writes for New Scientist magazine. (Incidentally, at its founding, the “New” was one of the more popular euphemisms for “communist.”) Krauss strikes me as someone who wants to be where the action is.
- Tony Haymet: He is the co-founder and current vice chair of CleanTECH San Diego, a business organization devoted to solving the climate change “problem.”
I have contacted the BAS (and their PR firm) but I have been unable to discover who decides how the clock is set back (or forward). Is there a vote among board members? If so, which board? Are clock-changing proposals presented to the sponsors prepared by the Governing or Science Board? I don’t know the answers.
In any case, the Doomsday Clock has gone back in time. The BAS says that by “shifting the hand back from midnight by only one additional minute, we emphasize how much needs to be accomplished, while at the same time recognizing signs of collaboration among” the world’s leading nations “on nuclear security and on climate stabilization.”
The BAS is proud of our current president, calling him “more pragmatic.”
They gush that he uses a “problem-solving approach” to solving problems.
The word more is revealing. It is taken for granted that the reader knows who was less pragmatic. Yet you-know-who’s name is never mentioned.
It is true that the Obama administration has put out feelers to the Russian plutocracy, and that discussions about how to reduce aged stockpiles of nuclear weapons have been held. But even progressives agree that Copenhagen was no more than Mr. Obama playing hide-n-seek with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
And even with Mr. Obama’s heroic efforts, the BAS still admitted: “We can no longer prevent global warming — it is upon us. … Without vigorous and immediate follow-up to the Copenhagen conference and well-conceived action we are all threatened by accelerating and irreversible changes to our planet.” To fix the devastating global warming we see all around us (shut up; of course you see it), the BAS wants to “to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through tax incentives, harmonized domestic regulation and practice.”
Can governments harmonize?
Never mind. Because we haven’t come to the weirdest portion of BAS’s announcement: the strange, empty silence about Iran. “We may be at a turning point, where major powers no longer see the value of nuclear weapons for war-fighting or even for deterrence.” They don’t?
Iranian President Mahmoud “Nyah-Nyah-Nyah” Ahmadinejad’s definition of the word “value” is different. He is busy clearing the streets of Tehran with bullets while beavering away on weapons work in Natanz. And Iran has just spurned — great word — another deal that would have helped them avoid further sanctions.
According to the New York Times, Iran would have been forced to ship its stock of low-enriched uranium “below the quantity needed for the fissile core of a nuclear weapon.” To this polite request from its betters, Iran said: “Nah.”
They want to keep their radioactive clay, which will be squeezed into the shape of a bomb or two. And won’t that be fun. But these events do not worry the atomic scientists, who are more interested in scolding the “coal power sector of the world economy.”
The BAS has outlived their usefulness. It is time for them to take their hands off the clock.
“Lawrence Krauss: An involved guy, he often writes for New Scientist magazine.”
He also writes for scientific american and a number of other scientific/skeptic magazines as well as the mainstream news press.
“Krauss strikes me as someone who wants to be where the action is”
Is that a suggestion that he’s in it to make money? That’s one way to interpret that comment – is that what you meant to imply?
“Incidentally, at its founding, the “New” was one of the more popular euphemisms for “communist.”"
Now you’re just being ridiculous.
“The BAS is proud of our current president, calling him “more pragmatic.””
Compared to a guy who trumpeted the notion of using nuclear “bunker busters” as first-strike weapons (against a potential nuclear power, just in case they thought that arming themselves might be a BAD idea), and who wanted to pull out of the ABM treaty, just about anybody seems pragmatic.
They are correct in part. One “major power”, the United States, has a President who sees no value in nuclear weapons. Or a military, for that matter. Because he believes his own soaring rhetoric (read from a teleprompter) plus his “reinvention of our society” (by methods strongly reminiscent of the Daley machine in Chicago) can heal the planet, make the seas recede (easily done as they weren’t “advancing” to begin with), and make us all brothers and sisters under His benign reign.
As for the “minor powers” (hi there, Iran and North Korea), they see great value in nuclear weapons. Because such minor powers dream of not just becoming major powers, but of doing it by erasing people they don’t like from the face of the Earth. Nuclear weapons are very useful for that.
And that’s not even including their perceived potential (in the minds of eschatologically-inclined religious zealots) to force legendary and conjectural “Twelfth Imams” to reveal themselves and lead their adoring acolytes to final victory over (Your Name Here).
As for “climate change”, it’s actually nice to hear some of the more radical “believers” admit that (a) climate is constantly changing and (b) there isn’t much humans can do about it. Although I’m quite sure what they really believe is, “…unless we now use the most Draconian measures we can think of”. I.e., the same ones they’ve been dreaming of using since they decided they hated any and all non-socialist, non-command-and-control, non- Bronze Age level cultural patterns about the time “The Last Whole Earth Catalog” was published, about three decades ago.
When I look at the Doomsday Clock today, I mainly see just another way that the “enlightened elite’” are throwing a tantrum because we Just Won’t Do As We’re Told. And That Makes Them Mad.
I suppose that fiddling with the hands on a clock is slightly less ridiculous than holding their breath until they all turn “Avatar Blue”. Just not much so, is all.
clear ether
eon
FAS and their collection of 4th world nutters is going down the tubes, if it hasn’t already gone. Like Wikipedia, they are in the E-streets begging for money. When that happens, it a good sign that they have lost their support.
I used to belong to FAS. Then they went all wobbly and I dropped out. Last summer (I think) they sent me an E-mail wanting money. I turned it in as Spam and blocked them. I doubt that I was the only one.
REDUCING PLANT FOOD EMISSIONS WILL MAKE US SAFER
Brought to you by the same leftist idiots who supported Obama’s upside down Hope and Change Express.
@1 Matthew,
First: great name. Seriously. Second: imply somebody might jump on the “climate change” bandwagon for personal benefit? Surely that never happens.
And what say you about the BAS ignoring Iran?
Seems like they adjust that clock with the same skillset they used to advance AGW.
It’s not science; it’s political.
But the climate IS stabilizing!
The more people come to learn that AGW is a FRAUD, the more the climate stabilizes. Eh, Dwught?
The doomsday clock has been at 5 minutes (or even 1 minute, I believe) for the last umpteen years, but the world is still here. Obviously, the clock has been falsified by facts and should summarily be dumped.
And oh yes Matthew @ #1, “new” has become nearly synonymous with Communist, as has “progressive” and other good sounding words. Commies are always coming up with something “new” because how can you be against the “new” which must be better than the “old.” Same is true with progressive, and recently the word, “liberal.” Indeed, most of what is “new” in Communism is really old and unworkable leading to old-fashioned dictatorship, most of what is titled “progressive,” is really regressive, and currently, most of those called liberal are really quite illiberal. What a perversion of language!
Liberalism/leftism is a mental disorder that comes in various degrees of severity. From the slightly confused John McCain, to the seemingly demented James Hansen, director of NASA’s GISS, who wants to kill all humans, except himself, and some buddies in order to eliminate industrial society thereby saving mother earth. The atomic clock loonies, AGW promoters, and all tree, coral, and polar bear huggers in face of overwhelming evidence that there IS NO problem with Gaia, refuse to admit the truth even when it is staring them in the face. Must be part of the mental disorder. Anyone have a 2X4 handy?
Climategate has already exploded the myth that scientists and intellectual elitists are somehow smarter than everyone else on political matters. Atomic scientists (which this committee does not seem to have many of, they seem to be equally made up of run of the mill leftists) are good at making atomic weapons. The possibility that they will be used is a political issue and when it comes to politics the opinions of scientists are no better or worse than farmers, housewives, plumbers, achitects, or bartenders.
A good portion of their statement concerned global warming, which has absolutely nothing to do with nuclear war. These leftists seemed to be using their statement simply as another political tool to push the myth of global warming.
As for nuclear war, they seem to have ignored the fact that a country headed by a Holocaust denier who has pledged to destroy Israel is on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons and the community organizer in chief in the White House is wildly disconnected from the whole issue. We may be closer to nuclear war in the Middle East than any time since atomic weapons were invented, yet the fools on this committee are oblivious to that grave danger.
Ah yes, Board member Stephen Schneider. The person who, some years ago, advocated that scientists, in essence, lie to the general public about their research, if necessary to advance a “noble truth”. He wrote “Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” Article “Our Fragile Earth”, Discover magazine, October 1987, p. 47.
These may be famous scientists but have they actually looked at what the word pragmatic means… it is surely wishful thinking.
1 archaic a (1) : busy (2) : officious b : opinionated (sure, but..)
2 : relating to matters of fact or practical affairs often to the exclusion of intellectual or artistic matters : practical as opposed to idealistic
3 : relating to or being in accordance with philosophical pragmatism
online from http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/pragmatic
I think the doomsday clock will be totally irrelevant after a suitcase nuke given to al qaida by Iran detonates in a major metropolitan area.
People like this esteemed board of intellectuals will immediately say that “it doesnt count” because as everyone knows, there is no such thing as Islamist terrorism….just a warmongering imperialist United States that is the real threat.
They will say this while standing next to the gaping smoking crater that was Washington DC…pointing out that what people are seeing is the direct result of anthropogenic global warming. And mean it.
Can we allow such stupid people to be associated with anything Nuclear? What next, Christian Scientists on the board of the Journal of American Medicine and Amish editors at Road and Track?
The *scientific* community in general: Whack jobs!!
Oddly enough, the CO2 emissions aspect is actually relevant. It’s a swords-into-plowshares thing. Reduced coal usage will likely result in increased usage of nuclear power. This, in turn, supports disarmament so that the weapons cores can be converted into fuel. It’s convoluted and makes multiple assumptions, but it’s not as absurd as one might think.
Unless or until Iron Maiden comes out with a new song it is always 2 min. to midnight.
I look forward to the BAS “Doomsday App” that you can download onto your smartphone for a low low price of $25.
In a NYT article today about a physics conference:
Lawrence Krauss, a cosmologist from Arizona State, said that most theories were wrong.
“We get the notions they are right because we keep talking about them,” he said. Not only are most theories wrong, he said, but most data are also wrong — at first — subject to glaring uncertainties. The recent history of physics, he said, is full of promising discoveries that disappeared because they could not be repeated.
Methinks that conference was a little too Star-Warsian. “Depressed” scientists [those quotes probably should be reversed] trying to focus on big questions when so many small ones remain unanswered.
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