Laura McCauley at Common Dreams writes—Stuck on the Brink, Doomsday Clock Leaves Humanity 3 Minutes to Midnight:
With "utter dismay," the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced Tuesday that the symbolic Doomsday Clock will hold at three minutes to midnight—at the "brink" of man-made apocalypse—because world leaders have failed to take the necessary steps to protect citizens from the grave threats of nuclear war and runaway climate change.
"Three minutes (to midnight) is too close. Far too close," reads the statement by the Bulletin's Science and Security Board.
The decision not to move the hands of the Doomsday Clock "is not good news," it continues, "but an expression of dismay that world leaders continue to fail to focus their efforts and the world's attention on reducing the extreme danger posed by nuclear weapons and climate change. When we call these dangers existential, that is exactly what we mean: They threaten the very existence of civilization and therefore should be the first order of business for leaders who care about their constituents and their countries."
The Bulletin's Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 17 Nobel Laureates, ruled last year to move the clockforward from five minutes to midnight to three in response to the competing threats of "unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals."
The Board acknowledged some bright spots over the past year, namely the Iran nuclear agreement and the Paris Climate Accord, but said that "they constitute only small bright spots in a darker world situation full of potential for catastrophe."
The statement continues:
Even as the Iran agreement was hammered out, tensions between the United States and Russia rose to levels reminiscent of the worst periods of the Cold War. Conflict in Ukraine and Syria continued, accompanied by dangerous bluster and brinkmanship, with Turkey, a NATO member, shooting down a Russian warplane involved in Syria, the director of a state-run Russian news agency making statements about turning the United States to radioactive ash, and NATO and Russia repositioning military assets and conducting significant exercises with them. Washington and Moscow continue to adhere to most existing nuclear arms control agreements, but the United States, Russia, and other nuclear weapons countries are engaged in programs to modernize their nuclear arsenals, suggesting that they plan to keep and maintain the readiness of their nuclear weapons for decades, at least—despite their pledges, codified in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to pursue nuclear disarmament.
[...]
Further, the panel described the COP21 agreement as merely a "tentative success."
Sivan Kartha, a member of the Board and senior scientist and climate change expert with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), said national pledges to reduce carbon emissions are "manifestly, unequivocally inadequate."
"The voluntary pledges made in Paris to limit greenhouse gas emissions are insufficient to the task of averting drastic climate change," he continued. "These incremental steps must somehow evolve into the fundamental change in world energy systems needed if climate change is to ultimately be arrested."
Since the clock was first introduced in 1947, the hands have moved 22 times. As Rachel Bronson, executive director and publisher of the Bulletin, explained, the clock represents a "summary view of leading experts deeply engaged in the existential issues of our time."
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2011—Texas governor declares fast-track emergency for abortion restrictions::
Remember how Texas is having such a huge budget crisis that the Legislature has been forced to slash funding for one of its favorite pet projects, crisis pregnancy centers?
Well, apparently, the budget crisis is over because Gov. Rick Perry is insisting that the Legislature focus its attention on the most important issue ever:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry has suggested to pro life activists that a bill in the Texas Legislature requiring women seeking abortions to have a sonogram taken of their fetus will be placed on the emergency fast track for passage.
That's right -- passing even greater restrictions on women's access to reproductive health care is an emergency in Texas, budget be damned. Not to mention that this legislation, if it passes, will inevitably lead to litigation, as it has in pretty much every other state where similar laws have been enacted. Nothing like a costly lawsuit to really help out with the state's budget crisis, huh, Governor?
This is the same Gov. Perry who, less than two years ago, declared that Texas might have to secede from the union because "the federal government has become oppressive. I believe it’s become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of its citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state.”
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin and Armando review the action from the Dem Town Hall meeting. Anti-Planned Parenthood video scam artists find themselves indicted. Environmental injustice takes many forms: paper plant pollution in AR & noise pollution in MA.
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