The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says Earth is now
closer to human-caused doomsday than it has been in more than 30 years because
of global warming and the modernization of nuclear weaponry. In fact, the
group, founded by the creators of the atomic bomb, moved their famous “Doomsday
Clock” ahead two minutes on January 22nd, stating that the world is
now three minutes from a catastrophic midnight rather than five minutes. So,
apparently, 23 hours and 57 minutes are all shot-to-hell and only three minutes
are left of this figurative day the Earth has to live. The Bulletin’s executive
director, Kennette Benedict, said “This is about doomsday; this is about the end
of civilization as we know it.”
And I
thought the NFL’s “Deflategate” scandal was depressing.
Don’t
start smoking unfiltered cigarettes, drinking hard liquor straight from the
bottle and bathing with your toaster just yet, however. The 20 scientists on
the board are, in essence, an advocacy group. While they claim to consider
climate change and the proliferation/modernization of nuclear weapons “equal
but undeniable” threats to humanity’s continued existence, logically I would
question both their analysis and their
conclusion(s). The last time they had Earth
this close to doomsday was 30-some years ago. So, in that sense, time
has virtually stood still for 30-some years now. And, back then, it would’ve
been global cooling that would have petrified
them in addition to a nuclear holocaust.
Maybe
we haven’t yet mastered the mysteries of time. Maybe 30-some years is too short
a window to matter in the cosmic big-picture. What if we looked further back,
and also at other than ‘human-caused’ doomsday possibilities?
‘Objectively’,
where would they have put the clock in the Dark ages? During the Civil War?
World Wars I and II? In fairness, shouldn’t we grant the dinosaurs their own
clock? Where was it at when the
asteroids or comet(s) hit and they became extinct?
And… I’d
like my own damn clock. I’d see
things a bit differently, perhaps. I would’ve moved the clock back a couple of hours when Reagan was
elected. And, with Obama’s election,
I’d have had the minute hand moving ahead…with
the speed of a wind-turbine’s blades in a hurricane.
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