Under the hysteria-inducing headline “End of the World Is a Bit Closer, Scientists Fear,” New York Times reporter Sewell Chan forwarded lefty propaganda from Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and their infamous “Doomsday Clock,” meant to be a sobering reminder of potential nuclear Armageddon.
Part of the blame, naturally, is put on Donald Trump for criticizing Obama agreements on climate change and Iran’s nuclear policy. But is this an objective group of concerned scientists or just another left-wing stunt? And why didn't the paper cover even greater clock moves during the Obama administration?
Chan wrote on Friday:
The Doomsday Clock, a potent symbol of scientific concerns about humanity’s possible annihilation, was advanced by 30 seconds on Thursday, to 2 minutes to midnight, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced in Washington.
The last time the clock was moved so close to midnight was in 1953, during the Cold War.
“In 2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change, making the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year ago — and as dangerous as it has been since World War II,” the bulletin’s science and security board, which oversees the clock, said in a statement.
“Global warming” and political “disinformation campaigns” were also cited, and the Trump administration blamed.
They also found that “in 2017, the United States backed away from its longstanding leadership role in the world, reducing its commitment to seek common ground and undermining the overall effort toward solving pressing global governance challenges.”
The scientists cited, among other destabilizing factors, the harsh rhetoric President Trump has exchanged with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un; Mr. Trump’s disavowal of the Iran deal; the hiring of climate-change deniers at the Environmental Protection Agency; and the administration’s plans to remake and expand the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
Chan offered this indirect bit of bipartisan criticism, while ignoring who was president then:
The clock has been adjusted many times since it debuted in 1947. Since 2010 -- years before Mr. Trump’s presidency -- the needle has moved ever closer to midnight: 5 minutes in 2012, 3 minutes in 2015, and two and a half minutes last year.
Yet a nytimes.com search indicates the paper ignored the Doomsday Clock during the Obama administration, even though it moved from six minutes to three minutes during those eight years, including ticks down in 2012 and 2015.
Yet two moves during the Trump era that ticked down a total of one minute off the clock were each treated as big news by the paper (here’s the news story from January 2017), with Trump to blame.
[BAS board member Lawrence] Krauss acknowledged that in the “fake news” era, some critics were likely to accuse the scientists of having a political agenda.
Can’t imagine why.
Newsbusters’ Aly Nielsen revealed that BAS members Lawrence Krauss and Robert Rosner who authored a piece in the Washington Post, “have repeatedly donated to liberals, including Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.” The partisan hand nudging the minute hand was not mentioned by the Times.
