Climate resets 'Doomsday Clock'

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Climate resets 'Doomsday Clock'

By Molly Bentley

BBC, 17 January 2007, 14:44 GMT

 

Experts assessing the dangers posed to civilisation have added

climate change to the prospect of nuclear annihilation as the

greatest threats to humankind.

 

As a result, the group has moved the minute hand on its

famous " Doomsday Clock " two minutes closer to midnight.

 

The concept timepiece, devised by the Bulletin of the Atomic

Scientists, now stands at five minutes to the hour.

 

The clock was first featured by the magazine 60 years ago, shortly

after the US dropped its A-bombs on Japan.

 

Not since the darkest days of the Cold War has the Bulletin, which

covers global security issues, felt the need to place the minute hand

so close to midnight.

 

'Perilous choices'

 

The decision to move it came after BAS directors and affiliated

scientists held discussions to reassess the idea of doomsday and what

posed the most grievous threats to civilisation.

 

Growing global nuclear instability has led humanity to the brink of

a " Second Nuclear Age, " the group concluded, and the threat posed by

climate change is second only to that posed by nuclear weapons.

 

When we think about what technologies besides nuclear weapons could

produce such devastation to the planet, we quickly came to carbon-

emitting technologies, " said Kennette Benedict, executive director of

the Chicago-based BAS.

 

The announcement was made at simultaneous events held by the magazine

in London and in Washington DC that included remarks from the English

Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees, and physicist Stephen Hawking.

 

" Humankind's collective impacts on the biosphere, climate and oceans

are unprecedented, " said Sir Martin.

 

" These environmentally driven threats - 'threats without enemies' -

should loom as large in the political perspective as did the

East/West political divide during the Cold War era. "

 

A number of alarming nuclear trends led to a statement by the

Bulletin that " the world has not faced such perilous choices " since

the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

The worries include Iran's nuclear ambitions, North Korea's

detonation of an atomic bomb, the presence of 26,000 launch-ready

weapons by America and Russia, and the inability to secure and halt

the international trafficking of nuclear materials such as highly

enriched uranium and plutonium.

 

Ice evidence

 

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded by former Manhattan

Project physicists, has campaigned for nuclear disarmament since

1947.

 

Its board periodically reviews issues of global security and

challenges to humanity, not solely those posed by nuclear technology,

although most have had a technological component.

 

This is the first time it has included climate change as an explicit

threat to the future of civilisation.

 

A less immediate threat, but included in the assessment, is the one

posed by emerging life science technologies, such as synthetic

biology and genetic modification.

 

While the harm done to the planet by carbon-emitting manufacturing

technologies and automobiles was more gradual than a nuclear

explosion, nonetheless, it could also be catastrophic to life as we

know it and " irremediable " , the board said.

 

It cited in support the conclusions of the UN's Intergovernmental

Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Its broad assessment is that the

warming over the last few decades is attributable to human

activities, and that its consequences are observable in such events

as the melting of Arctic ice.

 

In the years ahead, rising sea levels, heat waves, desertification,

along with new disease outbreaks and wars over arable land and water,

would mean climate change could bring widespread destruction, the

board said.

 

It also warned against the use of nuclear power as an alternative to

fossil fuels.

 

Climate resets 'Doomsday Clock'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6270871.stm