An expert group has advanced the Doomsday Clock minute hand a full two minutes to five minutes to midnight. The Doomsday Clock reflects the respected scientists view of world global security.
The Doomsday Clock was devises by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) over 60 years ago, just after the US wartime atom bomb attack on Japan. Initially set at 7 minutes to midnight it has changed backward and forward 18 times. The last time the clock was so close to midnight was at the height of the Cold War. The closest was two minutes to midnight set in 1953 after both the US and the Soviet Union detonated their first hydrogen bombs.
The BAS directors and scientists recently reassessed current doomsday scenarios and the threats civilization faces. They added climate change as a possible threat to humankind, second only to global nuclear annihilation. Global nuclear instability has increased in the "Second Nuclear Age", due to Iran pursuing nuclear weapons, North Korea's atom bomb detonation, and the 26,000 weapons still held in American and Russian nuclear arsenals. Highly enriched uranium and plutonium are also being trafficked on the black market with little possibility of stopping it.
"When we think about what technologies besides nuclear weapons could produce such devastation to the planet, we quickly came to carbon-emitting technologies," explained Kennette Benedict, BAS executive director, in a BBC article.
Climate impact has now been included in the global threats to humanity, with also the recognition that artificial biology and genetic modification can also create global negative impacts for humanity.
The BAS has also supported the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conclusions, declaring that anthropogenic climate change contributes to Arctic ice melt. The BAS identified future global climate change as likely to lead to rising sea levels, heat waves, desertification, disease outbreaks and wars fought over arable land and water. The group warned against nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels as its development could accelerate the spread of nuclear weapons.
Though the outlook is quite gloomy, the BAS scientists also believe that humankind will find a way to deal with these crises.
Via BBC
Show/Hide comment form
written by John , April 29, 2011