Doomsday Clock just advanced

[Actor]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/01/26/the-doomsday-clock-just-moved-again-its-now-two-and-a-half-minutes-to-midnight/

It's now 2 ½ minutes to “midnight,” according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which warned Thursday that the end of humanity may be near.

The group behind the famed Doomsday Clock announced at a news conference that it was adjusting the countdown to the End of it All by moving the hands 30 seconds closer to midnight — the closest the clock has been to Doomsday since 1953, after the United States tested its first thermonuclear device, followed months later by the Soviet Union's hydrogen bomb test.

In announcing that the Doomsday Clock was moving 30 seconds closer to the end of humanity, the group noted that in 2016, “the global security landscape darkened as the international community failed to come effectively to grips with humanity’s most pressing existential threats, nuclear weapons and climate change.”

But the organization also cited the election of President Trump in changing the symbolic clock.

“Making matters worse, the United States now has a president who has promised to impede progress on both of those fronts,” theoretical physicist Lawrence M. Krauss and retired Navy Rear Adm. David Titley wrote in a New York Times op-ed on behalf of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the clock largely because of the statements of a single person. But when that person is the new president of the United States, his words matter.”

[EasyGoer89]

Aah, my daily dose of fake news from the globalist puppets. :eek:

[tucker6]

The Doomsday Clock ran out of its 15 minutes loooong ago. Give it up. It's become boring and cliche and politicized.

[Tom]

Reality just keeps marching on.

[chadk66]

it lost all credibility when it mentioned global warming and nuclear destruction in the same sentence.:lol:

[Jess Hawsen Arown]

You shouldn't question their credibility. After all, there have been barely more than 20,000,000 end of the world predictions in the last 100 years.

[johnhannibalsmith]

Bring it on, I'm ready.

[boxcar]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/01/26/the-doomsday-clock-just-moved-again-its-now-two-and-a-half-minutes-to-midnight/

It's now 2 ½ minutes to “midnight,” according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which warned Thursday that the end of humanity may be near.

The group behind the famed Doomsday Clock announced at a news conference that it was adjusting the countdown to the End of it All by moving the hands 30 seconds closer to midnight — the closest the clock has been to Doomsday since 1953, after the United States tested its first thermonuclear device, followed months later by the Soviet Union's hydrogen bomb test.

In announcing that the Doomsday Clock was moving 30 seconds closer to the end of humanity, the group noted that in 2016, “the global security landscape darkened as the international community failed to come effectively to grips with humanity’s most pressing existential threats, nuclear weapons and climate change.”

But the organization also cited the election of President Trump in changing the symbolic clock.

“Making matters worse, the United States now has a president who has promised to impede progress on both of those fronts,” theoretical physicist Lawrence M. Krauss and retired Navy Rear Adm. David Titley wrote in a New York Times op-ed on behalf of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the clock largely because of the statements of a single person. But when that person is the new president of the United States, his words matter.”

Hey, Actor, go out and treat yourself to a big golf umbrella to protect you from the falling sky.

[rastajenk]

The Columbus Golf Show starts today! :jump:

[Marshall Bennett]

OMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE. :lol:

[boxcar]

OMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE. :lol:

Not if you buy golf umbrella. I promise you!

[Jess Hawsen Arown]

I just read that there won't be enough food when the world population reaches 10 billion. That doesn't seem so far in the future.

Check, please! How's that one-way ride to Mars doing?

[Tom]

Do things ease a bit when it's daylight savings time?

[boxcar]

Do things ease a bit when it's daylight savings time?


Oh HORRORS -- NO! Things get a lot worse. We move closer to the dreaded Hour of Doom because we lose an entire hour! :eek: :eek: (And Actor was filled with fear about a mere 30 seconds?) :rolleyes:

[johnhannibalsmith]

Hey, Actor, go out and treat yourself to a big golf umbrella to protect you from the falling sky.

Wait a second here I think you might be the one member banned from mocking other people's doomsday prophecies. :lol:

[boxcar]

Wait a second here I think you might be the one member banned from mocking other people's doomsday prophecies. :lol:

If anyone would, it would be moi. :)

[anotherCAfan]

I would've moved the doomsday clock backwards because war monger HRC was not elected.

[Actor]

I just read that there won't be enough food when the world population reaches 10 billion. That doesn't seem so far in the future.
It's 20 billion and the date is 2100. I did the math.

[Marshall Bennett]

My argument has been : If the evilness that hates us so much had the capability to end everything, we wouldn't be here discussing it because the end would have passed :)

[boxcar]

It's 20 billion and the date is 2100. I did the math.

That's SCARY! (The part where you did the math, I mean.) If your math is as loose as your logic, we'll be around for at least another 10,000 years. :lol:

[Jess Hawsen Arown]

It's 20 billion and the date is 2100. I did the math.

Maybe you're right, but this is where I found my information.

http://www.livescience.com/16493-people-planet-earth-support.html



Earth's capacity

Many scientists think Earth has a maximum carrying capacity of 9 billion to 10 billion people. [How Do You Count 7 Billion People?]

One such scientist, the eminent Harvard University sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson, bases his estimate on calculations of the Earth's available resources. As Wilson pointed out in his book "The Future of Life" (Knopf, 2002), "The constraints of the biosphere are fixed."

Aside from the limited availability of freshwater, there are indeed constraints on the amount of food that Earth can produce, just as Malthus argued more than 200 years ago. Even in the case of maximum efficiency, in which all the grains grown are dedicated to feeding humans (instead of livestock, which is an inefficient way to convert plant energy into food energy), there's still a limit to how far the available quantities can stretch. "If everyone agreed to become vegetarian, leaving little or nothing for livestock, the present 1.4 billion hectares of arable land (3.5 billion acres) would support about 10 billion people," Wilson wrote.

The 3.5 billion acres would produce approximately 2 billion tons of grains annually, he explained. That's enough to feed 10 billion vegetarians, but would only feed 2.5 billion U.S. omnivores, because so much vegetation is dedicated to livestock and poultry in the United States.

So 10 billion people is the uppermost population limit where food is concerned. Because it's extremely unlikely that everyone will agree to stop eating meat, Wilson thinks the maximum carrying capacity of the Earth based on food resources will most likely fall short of 10 billion.


According to population biologist Joel Cohen of Columbia University, other environmental factors that limit the Earth's carrying capacity are the nitrogen cycle, available quantities of phosphorus, and atmospheric carbon concentrations, but there is a great amount of uncertainty in the impact of all of these factors. "In truth, no one knows when or at what level peak population will be reached," Cohen told Life's Little Mysteries.

[anotherCAfan]

While I feel that the recent advancement of the Doomsday Clock was a primarily (if not purely) political/public relation maneuver, Jess Hawsen Arown raised a very interesting comment about carrying capacity.

To get my disclaimer out of the way, I voted for President Trump in November. I voted for Governor Romney four years prior, and I foolishly voted for former President Obama eight years prior (my first election in which I was eligible to vote). In the context of this Off Topic board, I might be a centrist, but I am definitely not liberal.

++++

That said, I recall learning about carrying capacity from high school and/or college. I think it is a serious, crucial issue. It's not on the radar of President Trump, but then again it's not like it was addressed in the previous eight years.

Carrying capacity (and climate change, although that is a separate issue) depend on how the entire world responds. It's not enough for the USA to be stellar, while countries such as India and China continue to pollute, etc. Our modern world is a "shining" example of the tragedy of the commons, and it isn't getting better...

[chadk66]

carrying capacity is going to be dealt with just as it is in the wild. the strong survive. and it's as simple as that. don't need to teach at Harvard to understand that.

[Tom]

and I foolishly voted for former President Obama eight years prior (my first election in which I was eligible to vote)

Hey, we all make rookie mistakes.
I voted for McGovern first time out. :blush:

[Marshall Bennett]

Hey, we all make rookie mistakes.
I voted for McGovern first time out. :blush:
I also did. Was 18 and they'd just lowered the voting age from 21. I was somewhat of a rebel going into college. I learned quickly however that Karl Marx was full of shit and his modern day bandleaders weren't any better.