The Doomsday Clock

[Warph]

Many of you have probably never heard of the existence of the Doomsday clock. In fact, it's been around since 1947, when the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) created it, as a means of measuring how close we are to the end-of-the-world.  Since its debut, and during the height of the Cold War between the United States and its communist antagonist, the now defunct Soviet Union (USSR), the minute hand was moved closer or further away from midnight depending on which way the political winds were blowing.  The closest the clock came to Doomsday was 1953, when the U.S. and the USSR each exploded a hydrogen bomb.  In response, the BAS measured the time as 3 minutes to midnight.  At the end of the Cold War, the BAS timekeepers moved the minute hand back a full seven minutes, to 17 minutes before midnight.  In the year 2000, a complete catastrophe occurred which caused the BAS scientist-timekeepers to once again move the minute hand closer to midnight: the election of George W. Bush..... Warph


Doomsday Clock moved back one minute
By Mark Iype, Canwest News Service January 15, 2010

Lawrence Krauss, co-chair of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, Stephen Schneider of BAS Science and Security Board and Jayantha Dhanapala of BAS Board of Sponsors hold a press conference announcing the adjustment by one minute back of the "Doomsday Clock" on January 14, 2010 in New York City:  http://www.canada.com/technology/Doomsday+Clock+moved+back+minute/2441796/story.html

Everybody take a deep breath.

The world has been given another 60 seconds until Armageddon.

In a symbolic gesture reflecting how close humanity teeters on the edge of destruction, scientists turned the hand of the "Doomsday Clock" back one minute on Thursday in New York, citing a more "hopeful state of world affairs."

For the first time in two years, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists changed the setting of the symbolic time piece, moving the clock to six minutes to midnight from five to midnight.

Midnight represents global annihilation, with the minute hand moving toward or away from "doomsday" based on the state of the world.

"The time to begin to free ourselves from the terror of nuclear weapons and to slow drastic changes to our shared global environment is now," said Lawrence Krauss, the co-chair of the BAS Board of Sponsors in a statement.

The BAS was founded in 1945 by former Manhattan Project scientists troubled by their role in the creation of atomic weapons. In 1947, they created the Doomsday Clock to mobilize support against the use of nuclear weapons.

The group, which includes world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking and 19 Nobel laureates, takes into account the threat of nuclear war and other destructive forces, including climate change, when deciding how to set the clock.

On Thursday, the BAS singled out the 2009 agreement between the U.S. and China on reducing carbon emissions, the 2009 meeting between Russia and the U.S. on nuclear arms reduction, and the 2008 election of Barack Obama in general, as reasons for the clock correction.

Trevor Findlay, the director of the Canadian Centre for Treaty Compliance said he agrees that the clock should be moved back, because the most important change in international affairs is the shift in U.S. policy.

"There are a whole range of issues that don't look good, like North Korea and Iran," he said from his office at Carleton University in Ottawa. "But I can't stress enough the importance of the election of the Obama administration."

Findlay said Obama's move away from the controversial Bush policies is reason enough to make a change to the clock, which he described as a "fantastic public display."

The symbolic time piece has only been adjusted 18 previous times since its creation after the Second World War.

In 2007, it was changed from seven to five minutes to midnight when North Korean nuclear tests, revelations about Iran's nuclear program, and concern over U.S. nuclear weapon policy were believed to be real threats to global security.

The latest recorded time was two minutes to midnight in 1953 as the U.S. and Soviet Union both tested nuclear weapons and in 1984, after a NATO military exercise the previous year ratcheted up Cold War tensions.

In 1991, the clock was wound back to 17 minutes to midnight, its earliest setting, after the U.S. and Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.