Scientists moved the hands of the symbolic “Doomsday Clock” closer to midnight on Thursday amid increasing worries over nuclear weapons and climate change. The clock is now two minutes to midnight. “Because of the extraordinary danger of the current moment, the Science and Security Board today moves the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to catastrophe,” said Rachel Bronson, president of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “This is the closest the Clock has ever been to Doomsday, and as close as it was in 1953, at the height of the Cold War.”
Each year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a non-profit group that sets the clock, decides whether the events of the previous year pushed humanity closer or farther from destruction. The symbolic clock is now the closest it’s been to midnight since 1953. It was also two minutes to midnight in 1953 when the hydrogen bomb was first tested. “We’ve made the clear statement that we feel the world is getting more dangerous,” said Lawrence Krauss, chair of the Bulletin’s Board of Sponsors and director of Arizona State University’s Origins Project. READ MORE
I wonder if this will have any effect on how people think of human consequences. Probably not. We all seem to think that our actions have no impact on the world, either politically (Doomsday clock) or environmentally (climate change). We think we can dump as much carbon into the environment as we want with no consequences, even to the tune of over 38 billion tons per year like we are currently. Yes, volcanoes dump more than that, but through many many years the Earth has been able to slowly absorb that and things have maintained a semi-balance. But with human beings numbering in the 7+ billions, and over 900 million cars, trucks and motorcycles in regular use (not to mention the tens of thousands of factories, etc) dumping huge amounts of carbon on TOP of that, of course we will have an effect on the environment! Are human beings responsible for producing these 38+ billion tons of carbon into the environment? Yes. Is carbon a greenhouse gas? Yes (Just look at Venus, which SHOULD have an average temperature only about 10 degrees hotter than the Earth, but is instead over 860 degrees F because of carbon in the atmosphere).
So why is it so hard for people to believe that climate change is a real thing? Why do the vast majority of the world’s scientists agree that climate change is real? Wake up, people!