Hawking: Climate change worse than terror,Scientists' Doomsday Clock

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hyo silver @ Jan 16 2007, 11:02 PM) [snapback]377018[/snapback]</div>

Just reflecting reality. I don't make the news. Seems to me there is a little hyper-ventilation about both issues, though I will agree they are important issues we need to deal with.

 

"LONDON - Scientist Stephen Hawking described climate change Wednesday as a greater threat to the planet than terrorism.

Hawking made the remarks as other prominent scientists prepared to push the giant hand of its Doomsday Clock ..."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070117/ap_on_sc/hawking_1

 

Well shoot, climate change is also a bigger threat to the planet than crime. So lets stop worrying about crime. No need to prevent it, no need for police, because after all, as a threat to the planet, it's trumped by climate change.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(HBO6 @ Jan 17 2007, 09:00 AM) [snapback]376793[/snapback]</div>

Doomsday Clock moves closer to midnight

"The Doomsday Clock's minute hand is expected to tick "closer to the clock's symbolic, apocalyptic 'midnight,' reflecting the 'most perilous period since Hiroshima and Nagasaki the Chicago Tribute reports this morning."

"The Associated Press has some background on the clock: When it was launched in 1947, the clock was initially set at seven minutes to midnight. It was as close as two minutes to midnight in 1953 in the wake of U.S. and Soviet hydrogen bomb tests, and as far away as 17 minutes to midnight in 1991, when the Cold War era ended."

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/...day_clock_.html

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ Jan 17 2007, 11:10 AM) [snapback]376801[/snapback]</div>

Now you're acting like my son, automatically going to extremes to try to prove somebody wrong.

What Hawking is saying is we're spending a lot of attention and money on terrorism. The effects of terrorism in the U.S. over the last ten years comes out to a few hundred people a year, primarily from 9/11 (when was the Oklahoma City bombing?). Not saying we shouldn't be careful and try to avoid future 9/11's, but on the ways I could die, it's pretty low. After car crashes, heart disease, gunshot, etc. As for economic impact, terrorism is lower than the Iraq war, lower than a recession from a number of causes, including high oil prices if something goes wrong in the mid-east.

In the medical devices industry we have a risk assessment technique, which tries to quantify the likelihood of the risk and the effects of the risk. So terrorism is a small risk with a big effect (hits only a few people, but they frequently get killed). Climate change is a much, much bigger risk with a debatable effect (will probably affect most everybody, but the impact varies, higher-priced food is likely, perhaps carbon taxes, but will there also be massive refugees, flooding of cities?). Politicians have so far convinced enough voters to approve our sacrifices to lower the total risk of terrorism. Now we need to do the same for global warming, and back off on the terrorism part because we're just stirring the hornets nest now.

 

"Hawking warned that "as citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day."

The Doomsday Clock referenced in previous post from USAToday's 'On Deadline" will also include: 'When the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists changes the time at 9:30 a.m. ET, it will include "the threat of global warming, the genetic engineering of diseases and other 'threats to global survival'" in addition to the decades-old potential for nuclear holocaust."

Interesting and frightening, the hand on the symbolic Doomsday clock hasn't been moved since 2002.

 

The title should have been without the colon - i.e.,

"Hawking climate change worse than terror"

I guess the libs have climate change, the right has terror. Every group has to have their boogeyman.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ Jan 17 2007, 12:10 PM) [snapback]376801[/snapback]</div>

Oh, yes. Because we all know that you can only deal with one problem at a time.

Helpful hint from me: Don't EVER drive, because there might be a traffic coming from the side AND in front of you! Oh no!

 

yes i believe that Mother Nature is a much greater potential threat. look at how effectively it has reeked havoc on the US and Australia. we knew it was coming, and still were nearly helpless.