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a kennedy

(32,618 posts)
Tue Jan 28, 2025, 04:17 PM Tuesday

89 seconds on the dooms day clock.......

The Doomsday clock was set at 89 seconds to midnight on Tuesday morning, putting it the closest the world has ever been to what scientists deem "global catastrophe."

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sdfernando

(5,498 posts)
1. I am convinced that we have already passed the rubicon
Tue Jan 28, 2025, 04:22 PM
Tuesday

We, as a species will be obliterated either slowly by climate change or by global nuclear war and the resulting nuclear winter. We will not recover. Its only a matter of time now...and not a lot of time either!

Response to a kennedy (Original post)

WarGamer

(16,071 posts)
3. Here are the statements from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Tue Jan 28, 2025, 04:27 PM
Tuesday
In regard to nuclear risk, the war in Ukraine, now in its third year, looms over the world; the conflict could become nuclear at any moment because of a rash decision or through accident or miscalculation. Conflict in the Middle East threatens to spiral out of control into a wider war without warning. The countries that possess nuclear weapons are increasing the size and role of their arsenals, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons that can destroy civilization. The nuclear arms control process is collapsing, and high-level contacts among nuclear powers are totally inadequate given the danger at hand. Alarmingly, it is no longer unusual for countries without nuclear weapons to consider developing arsenals of their own—actions that would undermine longstanding nonproliferation efforts and increase the ways in which nuclear war could start.

The impacts of climate change increased in the last year as myriad indicators, including sea-level rise and global surface temperature, surpassed previous records. The global greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change continued to rise. Extreme weather and other climate change-influenced events—floods, tropical cyclones, heat waves, drought, and wildfires—affected every continent. The long-term prognosis for the world’s attempts to deal with climate change remains poor, as most governments fail to enact the financing and policy initiatives necessary to halt global warming. Growth in solar and wind energy has been impressive but remains insufficient to stabilize the climate. Judging from recent electoral campaigns, climate change is viewed as a low priority in the United States and many other countries.

In the biological arena, emerging and re-emerging diseases continue to threaten the economy, society, and security of the world. The off-season appearance and in-season continuance of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), its spread to farm animals and dairy products, and the occurrence of human cases have combined to create the possibility of a devastating human pandemic. Supposedly high-containment biological laboratories continue to be built throughout the world, but oversight regimes for them are not keeping pace, increasing the possibility that pathogens with pandemic potential may escape. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence have increased the risk that terrorists or countries may attain the capability of designing biological weapons for which countermeasures do not exist.

SWBTATTReg

(24,620 posts)
4. Doom and gloom, repeated so many times over the past few decades, and the urgency is still there per these
Tue Jan 28, 2025, 04:35 PM
Tuesday

people. God, we might as well give it all up and find a place to hide under, per these people.

Think of the things positive, that have been accomplished. WE got a cure for various strains of COVID, and growth of solar and wind energies is amazing. And, we haven't used any nuclear weapons, and the world's population is sizably larger than it was decades ago, and people are still, for the most part being fed.

And this blurb about AI increasing risks? Maybe, but the benefits are there too.

This fear-mongering needs to stop, I ignore it for the most part, for I'm not going to live in fear like these people seem to want the rest of us to live in.

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