Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Doomsday Clock advances 30 seconds to two minutes before midnight


I made a prediction of sorts in CDC switches from nuclear war to flu as epidemic declared just before false alarm in Hawaii.
Between this scare and the Trumps' "nuclear button" tweet, I can hardly wait to see how much closer to Midnight the doomsday clock gets moved later this month.  Anyone else think it will be at least 30 seconds?
Last week, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the clock 30 seconds to two minutes to midnight, just as I expected.  NBC News reports The Doomsday Clock Moves Closer To Midnight.

The Doomsday Clock has been moved to 2 minutes to midnight in response to growing nuclear threats and climate change. The last time it was this close to midnight was in 1953 - a time when the U.S and the Soviet Union tested their first nuclear weapons.
FiveThirtyEight also explained the rationale, writing "The group explained its latest move mainly by citing President Trump’s handling of nuclear risks in North Korea and Iran. It also throws in worries about climate change for good measure."  It also traced the time of the Doomsday Clock in the graph below, showing that it is at the same time as it was in 1953 and also the closest it's ever been to midnight.


That graph shows that the Doomsday Clock actually was at 11:58 P.M. all the way from 1953 to 1960, so I was born when the possibility of nuclear war was just as high as the risk of the end of civilization from nuclear war and climate change is now.  That's not reassuring.  What I do find reassuring is that things got better.  This Crazy Eddie hopes that's the case this time, too, and that the biggest worry from the Doomsday Clock is fictional.

While I'm done with January, I'm not done with DOOM!  Stay tuned for a post about 2017 in climate change to start February at midnight.

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