two and a half minutes to midnight

[moevillini]

https://thebulletin.org/clock/2017

yes babe, count your blessings

 

[moevillini]

From USA Today

Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight on Thursday amid increasing worries over nuclear weapons and climate change.

Each year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a nonprofit that sets the clock, decides whether the events of the previous year pushed humanity closer or further from destruction. The symbolic clock is now two-and-a-half minutes from midnight, the closest it's been to midnight since 1953, when the hydrogen bomb was first tested. Scientists blamed a cocktail of threats ranging from dangerous political rhetoric to the potential of nuclear threat as the catalyst for moving the clock closer towards doomsday.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...weapons-climate-change-donald-trump/97077736/

 

[DutchJazzer]

i guess this doomsday clock is settled science

 

[moevillini]

no it's an opinion, but one based on the facts of the current world situation


as is the following from Mikhail Gorbachev, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts towards nuclear non-proliferation

"It all looks as if the world is preparing for war." -- Mikhail Gorbachev

That’s the transformative Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, in an opinion piece written for Time magazine and published Friday.

“Politicians and military leaders sound increasingly belligerent and defense doctrines more dangerous,” he writes. “Commentators and TV personalities are joining the bellicose chorus.”


The result, he observes, is a global risk profile that has grown untenable. Noting that there has been back sliding since the days when the global consensus that nuclear war was an unacceptable outcome successfully brought the U.S. and the Soviet Union to the negotiating table, Gorbachev argues that, led by Washington and Moscow, there must now be a resumption of political dialogue aiming at joint decisions and joint action — covering topics broader than terrorism.

from the right-wing Wall Street Journal
https://www.marketwatch.com/(S(rnrsydaynixa5x55oiibxm45))/story/gorbachev-the-current-situation-is-too-dangerous-2017-01-27/print?guid=1EE8A9EC-E4D1-11E6-A2E7-807098171D7D

here's another link to the story
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2017/0128/Why-Mikhail-Gorbachev-is-worrying-about-US-Russia-nuclear-war?cmpid=TW

January 28, 2017 —The threat of nuclear war is a familiar one to Mikhail Gorbachev. And in today’s world, he sees many of the same challenges that confronted the US and the Soviet Union during the cold war.

In an opinion piece for Time on Thursday, the last Soviet premier described the “new arms race” as the most urgent problem facing the world today. He writes that the "world is preparing for war," and as in the past, Europe is becoming increasingly militarized, while politicians and pundits employ divisive rhetoric that only heightens tensions. Mr. Gorbachev also lamented another parallel: while military spending rises seemingly without limit, countries are cutting essential social services that many citizens rely on.

But if the problem is the same as during the cold war, Gorbachev suggested history may also provide the solution: dialogue between the two countries. Improving relations between the US and Russia might not only defuse a complex and high-stakes political situation, but also make it easier to address other global challenges.

“One of the main freedoms is freedom from fear,” Gorbachev wrote, quoting President Franklin D. Roosevelt. “Ridding the world of this fear means making people freer.… Many other problems would then be easier to resolve.”

During the late 1980s, Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan worked together to reduce the two superpowers’ nuclear weapon stockpiles and limit the possibility of nuclear war. That cooperative effort allowed for a drawdown in nuclear weapons, to the point that 80 percent of the warheads accumulated during the arms race have now been decommissioned and destroyed, Russia and the United States reported to the Non-proliferation Treaty Review Conference.

 

[ONE LOVE]

Not entirely surprising especially now with the seemingly worsening relationship between US and China ....

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

The amazing thing is that the world craves bad news so much that people actually take this sort of stuff seriously.

 

[DutchJazzer]

a symbolic clock is as nourishing to the intellect as a photograph of oxygen to a drowning man.

 

[moevillini]

It's a warning Dutch. You should know all about them. Though you're probably beyond the warning stage.

 

[LogGrad98]

Sounds like a good name for a rock band.