下面转贴的新闻中的Doomsday Clock, 末日之钟， 名字有些耸人， 不过意义却是丁点儿都不夸张。 今年加州居然能够冷得像往年的多伦多， 据说水果的价格要飙升了， 就跟前不久的油一样吧。 听听还是有些好笑的意味的， 不过一旦哪天， 不仅是吃不上水果，连四季也颠倒了，我们还能做什么呢？ 接着和天斗， 与地争吗？
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moving 'Doomsday Clock' closer to midnight
LONDON (AP) - The world has nudged closer to a nuclear apocalypse and environmental disaster, a transatlantic group of prominent scientists warned Wednesday, pushing the hand of its symbolic Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight.
It was the fourth time since the end of the Cold War that the clock has ticked forward, this time from 11:53 to 11:55, amid fears over what the scientists are describing as "a second nuclear age" prompted largely by atomic standoffs with Iran and North Korea.
But the organization added that the "dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons."
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded in 1945 as a newsletter distributed among nuclear physicists concerned by the possibility of nuclear war, has since grown into an organization focused more generally on man-made threats to the survival of human civilization.
"As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth," said Stephen Hawking, the renowned cosmologist and mathematician.
"As citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day, and to the perils we foresee if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change."
The bulletin's clock, which for 60 years has followed the rise and fall of nuclear tensions, would now also measure climate change, the bulletin's editor Mark Strauss told The Associated Press.
"There's a realization that we are changing our climate for the worse," he said, "That would have catastrophic effects. Although the threat is not as dire as that of nuclear weapons right now, in the long term we are looking at a serious threat."
The threat of nuclear war, however, remains by far the organization's most pressing concern. "It's important to emphasize 50 of today's nuclear weapons could kill 200 million people," he said.
The decisions to move the clock is made by the bulletin's board, which is comprised of prominent scientists and policy experts.
Since it was set to seven minutes to midnight in 1947, the hand has been moved back and forth 18 times, including Wednesday's move.
It came closest to midnight - just two minutes away - in 1953, following the successful test of a hydrogen bomb by the United States. It has been as far away as 17 minutes, set in 1991 following the demise of the Soviet Union.
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On the Net:
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: www.thebulletin.org/index.htm
