大象传媒

The clock is grossly inaccurate as the link to 大象传媒's article showing the history of the settings proves. In October 1962 the clock should have been set at one second to midnight when the world came literally within hours of of complete annihilation from thermonuclear war between the US and USSR. It should have been set at about one or two seconds to midnight in October 1973 during the Yom Kippur war in the Middle East. As Israel was losing on the battlefield and was running low on munitions and supplies, it was clear that it was about to resort to use of nuclear weapons against its Arab neighbors. This would almost certainly have quickly escalated to a thermonuclear war between the US and USSR. The US went on international nuclear alert and delivered massive supplies and armaments to Israel within a matter of hours. This helped reverse the tide of battle. Both experiences were very frightening to anyone who was aware of what was happening at the time.

The prospect of nuclear war is not inevitable but there are ominous signs now that one may be brewing between the US and/or Israel against Iran. Even 大象传媒's web site has speculated about whether or not it will require the US to use tac-nukes to assure elimination of Iran's suspected underground hardened nuclear weapons development sites. Time is rapidly running out as Iran approaches the capability to build nuclear weaopns, a threshold the US and Israel cannot and will not allow it to cross.

The prospect of the end of human life by global warming does not seem as imminent but it may already be inevitable or soon could be. Nobody knows for sure but the signs of it are also very ominous. The melting of glacies and the northern polar ice cap are very convincing evidence. 大象传媒 and others have also reported that the melting of permafrost over vast areas of Siberia will likely release massive quantities of trapped methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. So far, the so called environmentalists have failed completely to reverse or even halt global warming largely due to having made a political game of it instead of a serious effort by the world's leading scientists and economists to figure out a universally acceptable and fair plan without destroying the world's major economies.

All of this makes the story of Armageddon in the Book of Revelations sound rather tame by comparison. Either way all human life on the surface of the earth would become impossible. Given humanity's short and sorry record, it hardly seems like the universe would suffer a major loss.

Don't worry Will - God will not allow Doomsday till the conditions laid down in Revelations have happenned - This is certainly the place to get reassurance from the Fundies!! F--- rationality and science!
alan

Although not a fan of millenialism, I think we are facing into a serious downturn in the fortunes of mankind. I think the late 20th century may have been the apex of human culture and we are facing into a century of vast and violent change.
We will not be organised to really tackle the challenge of global warmning. I do not think either we will be able to stop some looney getting his hands on a nuclear device and letting it off in a major urban area.
I hope I am indulging in unnecessarily theatrical speculation.

how did we ever come out of 6 ice ages before without man's industrial pollution???

Without for a second condoning pollution, could it be we are missing the natural cycles in all this?

One UUJ expert told me NONE of the models he worked with took this into account.

Andother QUB expert dismissed the warnings of Tony Blair's chief scientist, describing the advisor as "a politician".

PB

I'm just curious to know how many people here know what Will's photograph above is about. It was such a long time ago, and since the world has moved on, some of us forget that yesterday's reality is today's ancient history. It's something we don't talk or think about nearly as much as we once did. Perhaps few people do. Far to too few. That reality has never actually gone away.

Mark wrote:

I'm just curious to know how many people here know what Will's photograph above is about.

Showing my age here but I think it is Peter Sellers playing Dr. Strangelove in the film of the same name directed by Stanley Kubrick.

You correct Mark even though the cold war is over the nuclear threat has not gone away. In fact, I believe it has got worse. Many more countries with unstable regimes have the bomb and the availability of nuclear material on blackmarkets seems to be greater than it ever was. I fully expect to see nuclear device used in anger in my lifetime.

#5. At 12:01 PM on 18 Jan 2007, Mark wrote: "I'm just curious to know how many people here know what Will's photograph above is about."

Ah - the guy from the Goon Show - Captain Bludnock is his name - he later went on to ride big bombs.

Peace,
Maureen

PB, I bet UUJ loves you - they should hire you as the university spokesman

Maureen, it was Slim Pickens who rode the bomb down. It was the bronco busting ride of a lifetime. What a kick at the end. Peter Sellers played three separate roles in that movie which BTW was filmed in England. Here's one of many web sites;

Sorry Maureen, it was too easy, you do not pass go, you do not collect $200, and you do not get the brass figleaf and bronze oakleaf cluster for guessing right.

I'm afraid that the clock should be set very close to midnight now, maybe one minute before. Of all of the threats to humanity, at the moment I think Iran poses the most dangerous one. If chess is a metaphor for war, then nuclear weapons turn pawns into queens. Israel is believed to have the third largest nuclear arsenal, around six hundred weapons, more than enough for any conceivable use including a Dr. Strangelove type doomsday machine. Certainly more than enough to burn down the entire middle east. How many nuclear weapons would it take to destroy the world? I think just one, if it's exploded at a nuclear power plant containment building. A direct hit would send a hundred tons, that's 200,000 pounds of enriched uranium in the core into the stratosphere. An atom bomb has around 20 pounds. When it comes back down to earth, we all die.

On a happier note, how's the weather in Northern Ireland? 大象传媒 says the kind of brutal winter storms bashing northern Europe now are projected to become the norm as a result of climate change. On Tonight's World News Report, they reported a projection of weather conditions over the next seventy years. Aren't they opotimistic to think humanity will still be around that long.

I think you're all a bunch of pessimistic, gloomy, overactive doomsayers. Us humans have a tremendous ability to survive, and to do it well. You'll see. Not only will we still be around in seventy years, but in seventy times seven, if you'd like to be biblical about it. :-) And in that time, not only will we be around, but we'll be more peaceful, more sophisticated, more prosperous, more enduring, more healthy, and if you want to know how probability stacks better in favour of my scenario than yours, please extrapolate the current direction of these factors from, say, the past 2000 years, into the future.

As Norman Cousins once said, "Optimism doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.鈥�

Clouseau: Do you have a REUM?

Inn Keeper: I do not know what a REUM iz!

Clouseau: Zimma

Inn Keeper: Ahhh.. a RRRUUUMMM!

Clouseau: That is what I have been saying you idiot! REUM!

Special delivery, a behm, were you expecting one?.. A Behm?

Ahhhaaaahhhaaaoooww

Peace,
Maureen

Mark, you are being grossly unfair to the scientists studying global warming. It is not their job to solve the problem. That will take efforts from politicians and lobbying by the public, not to mention work by companies and just about everyone else available.
There are many ways of cutting our carbon emissions, however many of them will result in a net loss of "quality of life" as defined as consuming all the rubbish we feel like consuming and using up as many resources as fast as we like.
Needless to say, the kind of action necessary will not be popular. But to blame the scientists for problems sorting out global warming is like blaming me for Tony Blair, despite my never having voted for the man.
It is also very, very unlikely that global warming would cause the extinction of humanity. Short of nuclear and biological war, many people would survive most catastrophes.

pb- we know about the natural cycles. The point just now is that even taking them into account, the only sensible explanation for the temperature rises of the past 30 years, and especially the last 20 or so, is CO2 emissions by humans. I suggest going to www.realclimate.org, a website run by actual climate scientists interested in informing the public about their work.

Guthrie, me being unfair to scientists? Oh that's rich, I don't think so. It's not their problem to solve global warming? Why not, they created it. Who do you think gave us the technological age we live in? Everything we have that separates us from the 18th century is the result of discoveries of scientits and their application by engineers. Funny, they gave the world the atom bomb and the hydrogen bomb and then they felt guilty when it was used for killing people and threatening the end of humanity. What did they think people would do with it once they invented it? Oppenheimer knew it. After Hiroshima, he said "we have blood on our hands." Sakharov knew it too.

So what is science's solution, Kyoto? What a joke, if that was the quality of their scientific research, we'd still be back in the horse and buggy age. Kyoto couldn't be adopted because it was unfair and you cannot twist the facts into making it seem fair. Small wonder those it was most unfair to wouldn't accept it voluntarily and you couldn't force it on them. It would also have traded a looming ecological disaster for an immediate economic one. Had it actually been implimented, it would have crashed the world's economies starting with the US and spiraling outward quickly. As a result, hundreds of millions of people who depend on vast surpluses of American agriculture to survive would have starved, other hundreds of millions who depend on American consumers would have found themselves without any way to make money, and many nations would have suffered enormous social upheaval as a result. But scientists would have said, that's not our problem, that's an economic and social problem, they'd have washed their hands of yet another disaster they created. And then there's the minor detail that by their own admission it wouldn't work. However bad things got, the scientists would tell us we'd have to make it worse.

Scientists were as selfish and preoccupied as they could be, especially the ones who wasted their energies demanding Kyoto be put into effect. They were too enthalled with their pet projects to crash into Mars, build redundant superjumbo airplanes, and 30 mile diameter atom smashers to demand that governments switch their priorities to finding alternative energy sources actually capable of suppling massive needs of today's civilization, to reducing populations, and to stop burning down the rain forests. It's easier to tell people that that more and more of us must just keep using less and less than to actually come up with a plan and impliment it. Well that just isn't going to happen. And apparrantly, scientists are too politically and intellectually lazy to devise and demand a real plan of action that will work before it is too late.

I'm glad I'm not a scientist who believes in morality, I don't know how I'd be able to carry on my research into the frivolities of finding better television displays or more marketable perfumes while the ice caps and glaciers melt.

The simplminded solution of energy conservation as a cure for global warming is plain stupid because it ignores all the other parameters of the problem. And the scientists who said Kyoto was the answer were lazy, shortsighted, and selfish....just like everyone else. And they will suffer the consequences of global warming....just like everyone else. Better move that clock up a few more minutes, we're closer to the end than I thought.

Look at this, 大象传媒 Radio 4 asks if climate change is "A load of hot air?"

Dont shoot the messenger...

PB

I once heard a comment that the only good thing to come out of Jordanstown is the road to Belfast...

I think the liklihood of anyone using nuclear weapons is higher now than for many years. So they are right to notch the clock up.

As for the environment, well it doesn't look too clever.

It's difficult to say fairly that we should be blaming the scientists - ok they gave us the means for our industry etc, but thats it. If there's a shooting on a saturday night, who's guilty, Smith and Wesson ?(makers of the saturday night special .38) or the perp with his finger on the trigger, or is it society who conditioned the perp - in my book it's all of em to a greater or lesser extent.

The scientific community are Smith and Wesson, captialism (in which i believe by the way John) must accept the role of the perp, and you and I my virtual friends are the conditioning society - here we are burning joule after joule for the simple pleasure of sharing our facile opinions/flying to bora bora/turning acres of forest into plywood...

We are all to blame, and we all have a part to play in the solution.

Gee Dubyah, the problem with your thesis is that the scientists are critical to the solution, there can't be any workable answer without them. But they have sloughed off their responsibility to politicians who have no clue as to what to do. All the scientists tell us is to stop doing what we have learned by being taught by them to do during the last 200 years without them offering us a viable alternative, one which won't kill us.

There's nothing in the doomsday clock which speaks about "broken arrows" and other mishaps which could have brought the world to war. One account I read in the 1960s was that around a month after some new radar equipment had been installed at Norad, they got an electronic alert that there were a large number of missiles headed their way from the USSR. There were two strange things about it though, they didn't have any projected target points and there were far more of them than anyone thought the USSR had. Turned out they had forgotten to program the computer about the moon and so every time a radar picked it up on each rotation, it identified it as another approaching missile by mistake. You have to wonder how many other false alarms happened on each side during the cold war which brought the world to the brink of unintended destruction. Here's a link to the broken arrow which occurred in 1966. Other accounts say that it was believed that had the bombs actually detonated, they would have wiped out half of Spain.

Here's a link to what a B-28 bomb is about and much else you might want to know about nuclear weapons.

I find it fascinating in a grim sort of way.

Here's an eyewitness account of the bombing of Hiroshima by a Catholic Priest. Warning, it makes for grim reading.

The morality of nuclear weapons has been discussed since they were first invented and used. It is far too simplistic to dismiss them perfunctorily as evil and immoral, the issue is far more complicated than that. There are many questions about them which still have no satisfactory answers even after more than 60 years. I'm glad that it's not something I have to preoccupy myself with. One thing's for cerain, they aren't going away any time soon.

Gee Mark, I didn't know Hiroshima was bombed by a Catholic Priest. See, you learn something new every day.

(Anybody still alive out there?)

Ahhh, Mark, a nice silly rant does you good.

For starters, do you think that scientists operate alone? Perhaps there is a secret island of scientists, producing new breakthroughs and forcing them on the rest of us, without any discussion. Did anyone ask you if you wanted vaccines, computers, your car etc?

On the other hand, if you do wish to go back to the 17th century or even earlier, please be a good example and cease using your computer.

Kyoto was merely a starting point. As is usual in these situations, once you leave behind the science, you get into politics, which is concerned with allocation of resources and suchlike. Hence it is always much more messy.
You are aware that Kyoto was only a starting point, that reducing CO2 is pretty hard, that we can reduce it right now if we reduce our dependence on oil, etc?

Besides, nobody has produced any evidence that Kyoto would have led to an economic disaster. After all, economists have predicted 14 out of the last four recessions....

In fact, your comment on economics and Kyoto suggests you are indissolubly wedded to this materialist world where science and engineering are very important. After all, they are the reason we have all this food and material goods.

Ahhh, its always fun running into someone who has a problem that scientists dont do what they want them to. Are you a Creationist or something?

By the way, why is it the scientists job to come up with all the stuff you want? Who is going to pay their salaries when they are doing all this work? You dont earn enough by yourself to fund it all.

My attempt yesterday at a reply appears not to have been published.

So, Mark, I see you are operating under a false model of what scientists do and how they do it. They do not work away on a secret island base, then force us to use things they have discovered and invented.
Instead, they are part of society, and therefore your complaint about them having to solve global warming since you think they created it is stupid.

In reality, scientists discover and invents stuff, engineers work out how to use these things to make other things, and we end up with technological progress. The kind that enables you to publish screeds of bombast online.

As for Kyoto, that was a starting point, and as far as I am aware the Eu is looking to bring in carbon trading quite soon, without anyone claiming it will collapse the global economy. Your comments on that matter are over the top and not based in reality.
Moreover, Kyoto was a political solution, not a scientific one, as it was based in economics, not science.
Economics is not quite a science, and certainly not when experimenting with the economy.

What is even more entertaining, is that you appear totally, blissfully unaware of the scientists actually working to do what you seem to want. For example, many are engaged in ITER, the European fusion project. Many more are busy improving batteries and fuell cells. For example, my rechargeable batteries for my digital camera have a capacity of 2,300 ma, which is double what they would have been 3 or 4 years ago. The way you seem to be looking at it, the improvements just happened by magic.

Your lack of knowledge about climate change is also shown by your comments about what scientists should be doing about it. Oddly enough, you'll find that many, many scientists have been bringing it to the publics attention, and helping mobilise political opinion in order to get things going to help solve the problem.

Perhaps you have a better solution to the problem?

guthrie, your lack of knowledge about anything and everything is profound. If people suspect you are a fool, why not keep your mouth shut instead of opening it up and removing all doubt. Battery capacity is rated in milliamp hours (mah) not milliamps.

Thanks Mark for demonstrating an inability to answer any of my points about what scientists do and the relations of their work to society at large.
As for milliamphours, big deal. If thats the only erroneous thing you can find, you win my pedant of the day award. I couldnt actually recall precisely what the measurement was.

guthrie, there comes a point when it is clear that further debate is a useless waste of time. IMO, that point has been reached here AFAIAC.

Ok, so you admit you engaged in a pointless rant with nothing to back it up? Thats ok then.