Climate

Climate (pronounced klahy-mit)

(1) The composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year, averaged over a series of years (decades, centuries or other epochs).

(2) A region or area characterized by a given climate (often as climatic zone or with modifiers such as cold-climate, sub-climate, micro-climate, dry-climate etc).

(3) The prevailing attitudes, standards, or environmental conditions of a group, period, or place (used in politics, sociology, economics etc in the sense of mood, atmosphere, spirit, tone, temper etc).

(4) An area of the earth's surface between two parallels of latitude (obsolete).

(5) A region of the Earth (obsolete).

(6) In contemporary slang, a clipping of “climate change” and frequent verbal (especially oral) shorthand.

1350–1400: From the Middle English climat, from the Old French climat (region, part of the earth), from the Late Latin clīmat- (stem of clīma, from the Ancient Greek κλῐ́νω (klínō) (I slope, incline)), from klīmat- (stem of klī́ma (latitude, slope, region (literally “inclination”), the notion being “slope of the earth from equator to pole”), the construct being klī- (akin to klī́nein (to slope, lean)) + -ma (the noun suffix), ultimately from a suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root klei- (to lean).  The adjective climatic is sometimes confused with climactic.  Climatic is used of the climate; climactic describe something which forms a climax.  Climate is a noun & verb and climatic, climatical & climatal are adjectives and climatically is an adverb; the noun plural is climates.

The original meaning in the mid-fourteenth century was purely geographic, the sense being horizontal zone of the earth's surface measured by lines parallel to the equator (ie latitude).  From antiquity, geographers and cartographers divided earth into zones determined by the angle of the sun on the slope of the surface and the length of daylight.  Not knowing what lay beyond reported (and not always reliable) observations, these zones varied greatly.  Some calculated variously 24 or 30 climates between Meroe on the upper Nile (in modern-day Sudan) and the mythical Riphaean Mountains which thought to be the Arctic’s boundary, systems in which as one traced the map north, the climate changed at the point where daylight was a half hour longer or shorter (according to season) than the starting point.  Others thought cosmically and listed seven (one for each known planet) or twelve (tied to the signs of the zodiac).

Being a measure of latitude, there was obviously a tendency for the climates to correlate with temperature, something noticed as early as the late-fourteenth century and, being practical rather than abstract, the word came rapidly to be used in the sense of “distinct zones of the earth's surface associated with changes in weather”.  This meaning shift evolved by the early seventeenth century to make climate understood as “combined results of weather associated with a region, the characteristics of a country or region with reference to variation of heat, cold, humidity, rainfall, wind etc.  The figurative use (the collective mental or moral atmosphere of a group or whole society) dates from the 1660s.  The difference between climate and “the weather” is that climate is a summary of the long-term manifestations of weather and other atmospheric conditions (which can be applied to defined zones or globally).  The modern practice is that climate is a statistical summary of a representative period and that’s usually generational (ie 25-30 years) but climate modelers using the geological record and other sources (trees, ice cores etc) can construct longer epochs in centuries (eg the ice ages) or even millions of years, the global climate during the age of the dinosaurs often summed up as “warm & wet”.

Lindsay Lohan pondering climate change.

To acclimatise (or acclimatize) is to acclimate (become accustomed to) one’s self to the weather conditions prevalent where one find’s one’s self, a term used also figuratively in the sense of adjusting tastes or expectations to different cultures.  The use of modifiers is common and can be meteorological (warm-climate, dry-climate, chilly climate, temperate-climate etc) or figurative (hostile climate, sceptical climate etc).  In the age of climate-concern, there’s been a growth of such use including climate canary, climate control, climate denial, climate denier, climate despair, climate emergency, climate finance, climate doom, climate system, climate-speak and, of course, climate change.  Indeed, the very phrase “climate change” is a construct which has come widely to be used because it references easily understood consequences rather than some abstract process.  The possible climatic implications of man-made atmospheric CO₂ emissions was discussed as early as 1896 by Swedish chemist & Nobel laureate Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927) in a paper called On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground, his conclusion being that the burning of fossil fuels could lead to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading a global increase in average temperatures.  In the scientific community, his ideas for decades remained controversial and in the wider community, barely noted and it wasn’t until the 1950s when researchers, taking advantage of new techniques made possible by the vastly increased quantity of data which became available because of wartime advances and a vast expansion of meteorological and atmospheric measuring, began serious study of the study the potential impact of human activities on the Earth's climate.

Between the 1970s and the early twenty-first century, a consensus built in mainstream science that human activities (especially the burning of fossil fuels), were contributing to global warming and other climatic changes.  The early phrase popular in the discussion, at that stage conducted mostly among scientists and environmentalists (although the fossil fuel industry quickly mounted counter campaigns, both in public relations activities and the traditional buying-off of politicians) was the “greenhouse effect” but greenhouses, associated with positive things like grapes & tomatoes didn’t have the desired worrying effect so the terminology in the 1990s shifted to the consequences.  “Global warming” replaced “greenhouse effect” in consciousness-raising but it proved vulnerable to attacks from industry which claimed every unseasonal cold-spell disproved the thesis, thus the use of “climate change”.  That has proved resistant to challenge and even in the West the matter is now being taken seriously, as the consequences of climate change begin to affect to rich nations of the global north, destructive heat, fires, hurricanes, floods and tropical diseases no longer ignored as largely they were when those who suffered were mostly Africans, Arabs, Asians and animals.

Psychiatrists & psychologists find the distinction between climate and weather a helpful metaphor when explaining personality.  The term personality denotes the enduring pattern of a patient’s life and can thus be thought their individual climate.  The weather which produces that climate can be good (happy events, a successful marriage, a fulfilling career), bad (a dull job, habitually sore feet) or severe (cancer, divorce) and in some cases a patient’s reaction to these event can result is what is diagnosed as a personality disorder (PD).  In the West, psychiatry is thought one of medicine’s more recent disciplines and in some structural senses that’s probably true but the understanding of the human personality is ancient.  Writing in 45 BC, the Roman statesman & scholar Cicero (106-43 BC) observed that in men existed “…all kinds of depravity and perversity” and that “There are more disorders of the mind than of the body and they are of a more dangerous nature for the mind, when disordered… can neither bear nor endure anything and is under the perpetual influence of desires”.  Cicero went further, noting the depravities of men were deep seated and either caused or exacerbated by environment in which men lived and what afflicted one could also poison the whole for when an entire society “declare unanimously for what is wrong, then we are altogether overwhelmed”.  PD writ large: Each individual an element of the weather and the body politic the climate.

La Mort de Cicéron (The Death of Cicero (circa 1635), oil on canvas by François Perrier (1590–1650), Bad Homburg, Staatliche.

Within two years of writing those words Cicero would be dead and the circumstances of his execution would provide probably several case studies in PD but he had few reasons to complain; he may have lived by the pen but he ruled by the sword, for centuries remembered fondly by scholars of Antiquity and, perhaps less helpfully for his reputation, of late by Ted Cruz (b 1970; US senator (Republican, Texas) since 2013).  Knowledge of PD then was not novel when in 1980 when first it appeared in the third edition (DSM-III) of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, organized on a categorical basis with patients classified into one of several distinct personality disorder types.  This system was revised in the DSM-IV (1994) and again in the DSM-5 (2013), the latter adopting a hybrid categorical-dimensional approach to PD, a condition it notes affects at least two of a patient’s (1) way of thinking about oneself and others, (2) way of responding emotionally, (3) way of relating to other people and (4) way of controlling one’s behavior.  In the DSM-5-TR (2022), the types of PD are listed as:

Antisocial personality disorder: A pattern of disregarding or violating the rights of others.  A person with antisocial personality disorder may not conform to social norms, may repeatedly lie or deceive others, or may act impulsively.

Avoidant personality disorder: A pattern of extreme shyness, feelings of inadequacy, and extreme sensitivity to criticism.  Patients with avoidant personality disorder may be unwilling to get involved with others unless they are certain of being liked, be preoccupied with being criticized or rejected, or may view themselves as not being good enough or socially inept.

Borderline personality disorder: A pattern of instability in personal relationships, intense emotions, poor self-image and impulsivity.  A patient with borderline personality disorder may go to great lengths to avoid being abandoned, have repeated suicide attempts, display inappropriate intense anger, or have ongoing feelings of emptiness.

Dependent personality disorder: A pattern of needing to be taken care of and submissive (clingy the modern term) behavior.  Patients with dependent personality disorder may have difficulty making daily decisions without reassurance from others or may feel uncomfortable or helpless when alone because of fear of inability to take care of themselves.

Histrionic personality disorder: A pattern of excessive emotion and attention-seeking. Patients with HPD may be uncomfortable when they are not the center of attention and may use physical appearance to draw attention to themselves or have rapidly shifting or exaggerated emotions.

Narcissistic personality disorder: A pattern of need for admiration and lack of empathy for others.  A patient with NPD may have a grandiose sense of self-importance, a sense of entitlement, take advantage of others or lack empathy.

Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder: A pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfection and control.  A patient with OCPD (distinct from Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)) may be overly focused on details or schedules, may work excessively, not allowing time for leisure or friends, or may be inflexible in their morality and values.

Paranoid personality disorder: A pattern of being suspicious of others and seeing them as mean or spiteful.  Patients with paranoid personality disorder often assume people will harm or deceive them and refuse to confide in others or become close to them.

Schizoid personality disorder: Being detached from social relationships and expressing little emotion.  A patient with schizoid personality disorder typically does not seek close relationships, chooses to be alone and appears to care little about praise or criticism from others.

Schizotypal personality disorder: A pattern of being very uncomfortable in close relationships, having distorted thinking and eccentric behavior. A patient with schizotypal personality disorder may have odd beliefs or odd or peculiar behavior or speech or may have excessive social anxiety.

Greenhouse

Greenhouse (pronounced green-hous)

(1) A structure usually with a skeletal frame supporting panes of glass, Perspex or other translucent materials in which conditions such as temperature, humidity and irrigation are maintained within a desired range, used for cultivating delicate plants or growing plants out of season.

(2) In UK military slang, the clear material of an aircraft’s cockpit (now rare).

(3) In automotive design, the glass (and Perspex) between the beltline and roofline (also called the "glasshouse").

(4) In surgical medicine, a structure shielding an operating table and designed to protect from the transmission of bacteria.

(5) In climatology, as “greenhouse effect”, a description of the general global consequences of the increasing atmospheric concentrations of “greenhouse gases”, notably carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) etc).

(6) In climatology, a hot state in the global climate.

(7) To place (plants) in a greenhouse and (figuratively), to nurture something in some way to promote growth or development.

1655–1665: From the late Middle English greenhouse (house for growing greens), the reference to the vegetables grown (the produce of various colors but much of the foliage was green during the growing process).  The construct was green + house and the form green-house, while now less common, still runs in parallel.  Green was from the Middle English grene, from the Old English grēne, from the Proto-West Germanic grōnī, from the Proto-Germanic grōniz, from the primitive Indo-European ghreh (to grow).  The related forms include the North Frisian green, the West Frisian grien, the Dutch groen, the Low German grön, green & greun, the German grün, the Danish & Norwegian Nynorsk grøn, the Swedish grön, the Norwegian Bokmål grønn and the Icelandic grænn.  The noun use to refer to the color developed from the earlier references to vegetables and having “grened”.  House was from the Middle English hous & hus, from the Old English hūs (dwelling, shelter, house), from the Proto-West Germanic hūs, from the Proto-Germanic hūsą (and comparable with the Scots hoose, the West Frisian hûs, the Dutch huis, the German Haus, the German Low German Huus, the Danish hus, the Faroese hús, the Icelandic hús, the Norwegian Bokmål hus, the Norwegian Nynorsk hus & Swedish hus).  The Germanic forms may have been from the primitive Indo-European skews & kews-, from skewh & kewh- (to cover, to hide).  The word supplanted the non-native Middle English meson & measoun (house), from the Old French maison (house).  The now rare (and effectively probable extinct) plural housen was from the Middle English husen & housen.  In the Old English the nominative plural was hūs.  Greenhouse is a noun & verb and greenhousing & greenhoused are verbs; the noun plural is greenhouses.

Greenhouse: The Orchid House, Kew Gardens.

As structures used to create artificial, environments, optimized for the cultivation of plants, greenhouse has several synonyms.  The earlier noun conservatory dates from the 1560s in the sense of “a preservative”, a development of the adjectival use (having the quality of preserving), from the Latin conservator (keeper, preserver, defender), an agent noun from conservare.  The meaning “a place for preserving or carefully keeping anything” emerged in the 1610s and when used for the growing of flowers & vegetables, such structures came in the 1650s be called greenhouses.  In English, the formal use in musical education as “a school of music; a place for the performing arts” dates from 1805, from the Italian conservatorio or the French conservatoire (places of public instruction and training in some branch of science or the arts, especially music), from the Medieval Latin conservatorium.  The first places so described were Italian and the word came into use in France after the Revolution (1789); the Italian word was used in English after 1771.  Among gardeners and horticulturalists, by the mid-nineteenth century earthier terms such as “planthouse” and “hothouse” were in use, even in places of serious scientific study such as London’s Kew Gardens (the Royal Botanic Gardens) which, for practical reasons, adopted for various greenhouses pragmatic descriptions such as “Palm House”, “Orchid House” etc.

Lindsay Lohan with a pair of ratchet loppers, pruning cuttings for the potting shed, May 2015.

A twentieth century coining was the “poly house”, an allusion to the use of thick, translucent polythene which in the 1930s, supplied at low cost in rolls by the US petrochemical industry, was instant popular, enabling greenhouses to be built quickly and cheaply.  The related “poly tunnel” & “poly-tube” described the use of the same material to produce even smaller micro-environments with the fabrication of long, “roofs” (semi-circular with the appearance of a tube although without a base) which covered the rows of plants; depending on the crop, such structures could be only a few inches high.  There was also the “potting shed” which was different in that it wasn’t a place with any form of climate control and simply a place a gardener (professional or amateur) could work with their tools, pots etc falling conveniently to hand.  “Potting shed” however has been a “loaded” euphemism and metonym since the publication of DH Lawrence’s (1885–1930) Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928) which wasn’t generally available in the UK until 1961 when R v Penguin Books was decided.  That was a test case of recent legislative amendments in which a jury found the novel satisfied the new provision that the work was “in the interests of science, literature, art or learning, or of other objects of general concern”.  According to some (and they still exist in the Conservative Party), society has since been in decline.  In the novel, more was fertilized in the potting shed than the plants.

August 1912: By the time reports about global warming appeared in the popular press, understandings of the basics of human-induced climate change had been understood for almost a century.

Most reputable sources define the greenhouse effect (on Earth and other heavenly bodies) as something like: “The radiative effect of all infrared absorbing constituents in the atmosphere”.  The operation of the greenhouse effect is not unique to the Earth of the post-industrial revolution but what makes it historically unusual is (1) the rapidity of the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) and (2) that so much of the increase is due to human activity (mostly the burning of fossil fuels).  In the early nineteenth century, French scientists had published papers describing what would later come to be known as the greenhouse effect, deconstructing the consequences of differing compositions in the Earth’s atmosphere and it was a Swedish meteorologist who first applied the term “greenhouse”, an example of the use of a term the general population would find more accessible than the sometime arcane language of science.  The term “greenhouse seems first to have appeared in print in 1937 but for decades, perception of the phenomenon as a problem was restricted to a handful of specialists and even in the scientific community there were many who viewed it as something benign or even beneficial, there being an awareness a rising temperature would make more of the planet habitable and the increasing volume of CO₂ would encourage plant growth, thus benefiting agriculture.  At the time, climate science was in its infancy, satellites and the big computers needed to model the climate system were decades away and the data on which to develop theories simply didn’t exist.  Additionally, it wasn’t until well into the second half of the century those emissions began radically to increase, the assumptions long that any possible problems probably wouldn’t emerge for centuries.

A chilly looking Greta Thunberg (b 2003), during School Strike for Change, protesting against global warming outside the Swedish Parliament, November 2018.  On 3 January 2024, the world's most famous weather forecaster turned 21.

So “greenhouse effect” never really worked as a term successfully to convey the degree of seriousness the issue deserved.  Accordingly, academics, the activist communities and sympathetic journalists began in the late 1970s to use other words but “global warming” although accurate, really wasn’t much of an improvement because “warm” is a generally “positive” word, used to covey the idea of “kindness, friendliness or affection” and while many people probably thought their climate was already hot enough, more (especially those in the “global north”) would probably have welcomed generally warmer weather.  So that didn’t gain the necessary traction and by the early 1990s, “climate change” began to be used interchangeably with “global warming”, the old “greenhouse effect” by now abandoned.  The scientific rationale for this was that in the narrow technical sense, global warming describes only increased surface warming, while climate change describes the totality of changes to Earth's climate system.  However, until well into the twenty-first century, for most of the population in the First World, what in retrospect have come to be understood as manifestations of climate change, things were hardly obvious.  By the 2020s, the linguistic implications in messaging seemed finally understood and “climate crisis”, “climate emergency” and “climate catastrophe” became the preferred terms and while the “climate change deniers” seem now less numerous (at least some perhaps having perished from heat stroke or drowned in one of the “once in 500 year floods” which seem now frequent).  In the political discourse, "climate crisis" and "global heating" seem now the popular forms. 

The Automotive Greenhouse

1970 Series 2 Fiat 124 Coupé (left) and 2022 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE (right).

The Fiat and Chevrolet represent two approaches to the coupé greenhouse (styled also as the "glasshouse") and both attracted some comment from critics, the Fiat because it was judged around an inch (25 mm) too high to achieve aesthetic success and the Chevrolet because it was too low (the estimates of by how much varied).  The Italian car however was much admired and enjoyed strong demand for most of its life (1967-1975 and given what followed the end of production was probably premature), and at least some of the success was attributable to the comfortable cabin with its generous headspace and the greenhouse which provided outstanding visibility in all directions, an important aspect of what was coming to be understood as “passive safety” (as opposed to “active safety” elements such as seat-belts or crumple-zones).  The low roof-line on the Chevrolet was thought by some to give the car a “cartoonish” quality although it’s a subjective judgment whether that detracted from the look and certainly it lent the thing a low-slung, sporty appearance which was after all presumably what most appealed to the target market.  The practical drawback was the abbreviated greenhouse meant a dark cabin and some compromise in the ease of ingress & egress although descriptions suggesting the space was “claustrophobic” or “oppressive” seem hyperbolic.  As a retro take on the original Camaro (1967-1969), the fifth (2010-2015) & sixth (2016-2024) generation models were well executed although greenhouse and other details unsettled some.  Ms Thunberg approves of neither although, depending on how one deconstructs the numbers, it's debatable which contributes more to the climate crisis.

Standard and Spezial coachwork on the Mercedes-Benz 300d (W189, 1957-1962).  The "standard" four-door hardtop was available throughout the run while the four-door Cabriolet D was offered (off and on) between 1958-1962 and the Spezials (landaulets, high-roofs etc), most of which were for state or diplomatic use, were made on a separate assembly line in 1960-1961.  The standard greenhouse cars are to the left, those with the high roof-line to the right.

The 300d (W189, 1957-1962) was a revised version of the W186 (300, 300b & 300c; 1951-1957) which came to be referred to as the "Adenauer" because several were used as state cars by Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967; chancellor of the FRG (West Germany) 1949-1963).  Although the coachwork never exactly embraced the lines of mid-century modernism, the integration of the lines of the 1950s with the pre-war motifs appealed to the target market (commerce, diplomacy and the old & rich) and on the platform the factory built various Spezials including long wheelbase "pullmans", landaulets, high-roof limousines and four-door cabriolets (Cabriolet D in the Daimler-Benz system).  The high roofline appeared sometimes on both the closed & open cars and even then, years before the assassination of John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963), the greenhouse sometimes featured “bullet-proof” glass.  As well as Chancellor Adenauer, the 300d is remembered also as the Popemobile (although not then labelled as such) of John XXIII (1881-1963; pope 1958-1963).

Two from the Daimler-Benz Spezial line: The 1965 Papal Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100) Landaulet (left) built for Pope Paul VI (1897-1978; pope 1963-1978) (left) and the one-off short wheelbase (SWB) 600 Landaulet (right) built for racing driver Graf von Berckheim (Count Graf Philipp-Constantin Eduard Siegmund Clemens Tassilo Tobias von Berckheim, 1924-1984).

The Papal 600 used the higher roof-line which was a feature of some of the Spezial Pullmans & Pullman Landaulets.  The attractions of the high-roof coachwork was (1) greater headroom which afforded more convenient ingress & egress (a practical matter given the cars were sometime parade vehicles used by royalty and military dictators, both classes given to wearing crowns or big hats) and (2) the extended greenhouse made it easier for crowds to see the occupants.  Count von Berckheim's car used the standard roof-line and was the only SWB Landaulet, the other 59 all built on the LWB Pullman platform.

Monsoon

Monsoon (pronounced mon-soon)

(1) The seasonal wind of the Indian Ocean and southern Asia, blowing from the southwest in summer (associated with heavy rain) and from the northeast in winter.

(2) On the Indian sub-continent and in nearby countries, the season during which the southwest monsoon blows, commonly marked by heavy rains; the rainy season (known as the Asiatic monsoon).

(3) Any wind that changes directions with the seasons (rare) or any persistent wind established between water and adjoining land.

(4) In colloquial use, sudden, hard rain.

(5) Entire meteorological systems with such characteristics.

1547: From the Raj-era English monsoon (alternating trade wind of the Indian Ocean), from the now obsolete Dutch monssoen, from the Portuguese monção, from the earlier moução, from the Arabic موسم (mawsim) (time of year, appropriate season (for a voyage, pilgrimage etc.)), from وَسَمَ‎ (wasama) (to mark, to brand; he marked).  Monsoon has a specific technical meaning in meteorology but in casual use it’s sometimes used as a synonym for (especially sudden) hard rain as an alternative to terms like deluge, rainstorm, storm & squall.  Monsoon is a noun and monsoonal & monsoonish are adjectives; the noun plural is monsoons.

Lindsay Lohan caught in a monsoon in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004).

The Arabic word came into use among Portuguese sailors crewing ships which plied the Indian Ocean trade routes.  In the Arabic, mawsim could be used to describe anything recurrent, especially annual events such as festivals and, confusingly to the Portuguese, it could reference difference seasons (spring, summer etc) because each could be associated with the appropriate time for some activity (a pilgrimage, a harvest etc).  Under the Raj, in the sub-continent and adjacent lands, it came to be applied specifically to the seasonal (April through October) south-westerly winds which both brought the rains and were best suited to the sailing ships making voyages to the East Indies (modern-day Indonesia).  Technically, the winter’s north-easterly winds were also a monsoon but because the summer monsoon generated much heavier rain, it came emphatically to be spoken of as "the monsoon".  Because of the similarity of the conditions, use of the word (as a technical term) has extended from the original (Asian-Australian) to describe the rain patterns in West Africa and the Americas associated with seasonal changes in the direction of prevailing winds but, because the change is not as dramatic (especially in North & South America), some meteorologists prefer other terms.

To a meteorologist a monsoon is not just the summer rains but a system of winds which influences the climate of a large area which stretches as far south as northern Australia, the prevailing direction reversing with the change in seasons.  Although affected by ocean temperatures, monsoons were long thought primarily caused by the much greater annual variation in temperature over large land masses but the influence of oceanic temperatures is now becoming clear.  This variation induces higher atmospheric pressure over the continents in the winter and much lower levels in summer, the disparity causing the strong winds to blow between the ocean and the land, accounting for the heavy seasonal rainfall.

Monsoon storm event over Tuscon, Arizona.

That climate change is caused by the increased levels of atmospheric CO₂ is now accepted by just about everybody except some right-wing fanatics and those who get their medical and scientific advice from their hairdressers or personal trainer.  In the last decade, enough data has been accumulated to build models which predict the changes the Asian-Australian monsoon is expected to undergo and although there are variations between them, all seem to suggest a net increase in monsoon rainfall on a seasonal mean, area-average basis, the causes essentially two-fold: The rise in the land-sea thermal contrast and, of greater significance, warming over the Indian Ocean which means the monsoon winds will carry more moisture to the sub-continent.  There are variations in estimates but typically most models suggest the increase in total rainfall over India will be around 5-10%.  That figure is often misunderstood because it refers to a long-term average number and given that in some years rainfall will actually be below average, in some years it will be much above and climate simulations also show different patterns of geographic distribution which means it’s difficult to predict specific outcomes except to say the trend-lines are upward.  The effect on the Asian-Australian monsoon of anthropogenic climate change is thus certain in direction (and to a degree in extent) but unpredictable at the margins.  The mechanism is well known:  A warming climate allows more moisture to be held in the atmosphere which means rainfall when it does occur will be heavier.  Carbon is a form of energy so more of it in the atmosphere means a more energetic atmosphere and thus climate events, when they occur, will probably tend to the extreme in frequency and severity.

Exposome

Exposome (pronounced eks-poh-sohm)

(1) A concept describing (1) the environmental exposures an individual encounters throughout life and (2) how these factors impact an individual's biology and health.

(2) The collection of environmental factors (stress, diet, climate, health-care etc) to which an individual is exposed and which can have an effect on health outcomes.

2005: The construct was expos(e) +‎ -ome, the word coined by cancer epidemiologist Dr Christopher Wild, then director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).  Expose (in the sense of “to lay open to danger, attack, harm etc”; “to lay open to something specified”) dates from the mid-fifteenth century and was from the late Middle English exposen, from the Middle French exposer (to lay open, set forth), from the Latin expōnō (set forth), with contamination from poser (to lay, place). The –ome suffix was an alteration of -oma, from the Ancient Greek -ωμα (-ōma).  It was only partially cognate to -some (body), from σῶμα (soma) (body), in that both share the case ending -μα (-ma), but the ω was unrelated.  The sense was of “a mass of something” and use is familiar in forms such as genome (in genetics the complete genetic information (DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) or RNA (ribonucleic acid)) and phenome (the whole set of phenotypic entities in a cell, tissue, organ, organisms, and species). Exposome is a noun and exposomic is an adjective; the noun plural is exposomes.

The study and assessment of external and internal factors (chemical, physical, biological, social, climatic etc) factors that may influence human health is not new and evidence of interest in the topic(s) exist in the literature of physicians and philosophers (there was sometimes overlap) from the ancient civilizations of Greece, Rome, China, Persia and India.  One of the paradoxes of modernity in medicine was that simultaneously there developed an interest in (1) interdisciplinary and holistic approaches while (2) specialization become increasingly entrenched, the latter leading sometimes to a “siloing” in research and data accumulation.  What makes exposome a useful tool is it is a way of expressing the interplay between genetics and environmental factors in the development of diseases with a particular focus on chronic conditions and widely the concept has been applied in many fields of medicine beyond public health.  What it does is calculate the cumulative effect of multiple exposures, allowing researchers to “scope-down” to specific or general gene-environment interactions, producing data to permit a more accurate assessment of disease risk and thus the identification of useful modes of intervention.

Dr Wild’s coining of exposome came about because some word or phrase was needed to describe his innovation which was the application of a systematic approach to measuring environmental exposures to what was coming to be known about the human genome; in a sense it was an exercise in cause and effect, the three components being (1) the external exposome, (2) the internal exposome and (3) the biological response.  The external exposome included factors such as air pollution, diet and socioeconomic factors as well as specific external factors like chemicals and radiation.  The internal exposome included endogenous factors, such as hormones, inflammation, oxidative stress, and gut microbiota.  The biological response described the complex interactions between the external and internal exposome factors and their influence on an individual's physiology and health.

At its most comprehensive (and complex), the exposome is a cumulative measure of all environmental exposures to which an individual has been subject throughout their entire life.  While that’s something that can be modelled for an “imagined person”, in a real-world instance it will probably always be only partially complete, not least because in some cases critical environmental exposures may not be known for long after their effect has been exerted; indeed, some may be revealed only by an autopsy (post mortem).  Conceptually however, the process can be illustrated by example and one illustrative of the approach is to contrast the factors affecting the same individual living in three different places.  What that approach does is emphasize certain obvious differences between places but variations in an exposome don’t depend on the sample being taken in locations thousands of miles apart.  For a variety of reasons, the same individual might record a radically different outcome if (in theory) living their entire life in one suburb compared with one adjacent or even in one room in one dwelling compared with another perhaps only a few feet away.  Conditions can be similar across a wide geographical spread or different despite close proximity (even between people sitting within speaking distance), the phenomenon of “micro-climates” in open-plan offices well documented.  The number of variables which can be used usefully to calculate (estimate might be a better word) an individual’s (or a group’s) exposome is probably at least in the dozens but could easily be expanded well into three figures were one to itemize influences (such as chemicals or specifics types of pollutant matter) and such is the complexity of the process that the mere existence of some factors might be detrimental to some individuals yet neutral or even beneficial to others.  At this stage, although the implications of applying AI (artificial intelligence) to the interaction of large data sets with a individual’s genetic mix have intrigued some, the exposome remains an indicative conceptual model rather than a defined process.

As an example, consider the same individual living variously in New York City, Dubai or Los Angeles.  In each of those places, some factors will be universal within the locality while others will vary according to which part of place one inhabits and even at what elevation at the same address; the physical environment in a building’s ground floor greatly can vary from that which prevails on the 44^th floor:

Lindsay Lohan in New York City in pastel yellow & black bouclé tweed mini-dress.  Maintaining an ideal BMI (body mass index) is a positive factor in ones exposome. 

(1) Air Quality and Pollution: Moderate to high levels of air pollution, especially from traffic (NO₂, PM2.5). Seasonal heating (oil and gas) contributes in winter.  Subway air has unique particulate matter exposure.

(2) Climate and UV Radiation: Humid continental climate—cold winters and hot summers. Seasonal variability affects respiratory and cardiovascular stressors.

(3) Diet and Food Environment: Diverse food options—high availability of ultra-processed foods but also global cuisines. Food deserts in poorer boroughs can reduce fresh produce access.

(4) Built Environment and Urban Design: Dense, walkable, vertical urban environment. High reliance on public transport; more noise pollution and crowding stress.  Lower car ownership can reduce personal emissions exposure.

(5) Cultural and Psychosocial Stressors: High-paced lifestyle, long working hours. High density increases social stress, noise, and mental health challenges.  Diversity can be enriching or alienating, depending on context.

(6) Economic and Occupational Exposures: Highly competitive job market. Occupational exposures vary widely—white-collar vs service industries. Union protections exist in some sectors.

(7) Healthcare Access and Public Policy: Robust healthcare infrastructure, but disparities remain by borough and income. Medicaid and public hospitals provide some safety net.

Lindsay Lohan in Dubai in J.Lo flamingo pink velour tracksuit.  A healthy diet and regular exercise are factors in one's exposome. 

(1) Air Quality and Pollution: Frequently exposed to dust storms (fine desert dust), high PM10 levels, and air conditioning pollutants. Limited greenery means less natural air filtration.  Desalination plants and industrial expansion add further exposure.

(2) Climate and UV Radiation: Extreme desert heat (45°C+), intense UV exposure, little rain. Heat stress and dehydration risks are chronic, especially for outdoor workers.

(3) Diet and Food Environment: High import dependency. Abundant processed and fast foods, especially in malls. Dietary pattern skewed toward high sugar and fat content.  Cultural fasting (eg Ramadan) introduces cyclical dietary stressors.

(4) Built Environment and Urban Design: Car-centric city. Pedestrian-unfriendly in many areas due to heat and design. Heavy air conditioning use is a major indoor exposure pathway.

(5) Cultural and Psychosocial Stressors: Strict social codes and legal restrictions influence behavioral exposures. Expat life often means social disconnection and job insecurity for migrant workers.

(6) Economic and Occupational Exposures: Large migrant workforce faces occupational health risks, including long hours in extreme heat. Labor protections are inconsistent.

(7) Healthcare Access and Public Policy: Healthcare access stratified—good for citizens and wealthy expats, less so for low-wage migrants. Private sector dominates.

Lindsay Lohan in Los Angeles in 2005 Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG (2005-2011) Roadster (R230, 2002-2011).  Smoking is a factor in one's exposome.

(1) Air Quality and Pollution: Known for smog due to vehicle emissions and topography (valley trap). Ozone levels high, especially in summer. Wildfire smoke increasingly common.

(2) Climate and UV Radiation: Mediterranean climate with mild, dry summers. High UV exposure, though moderated by coastal influence. Drought conditions affect water quality and stress.

(3) Diet and Food Environment: Strong health-food culture, organic and plant-based diets more common. Yet fast food and food deserts remain in less affluent areas.  Hispanic and Asian dietary influences prominent.

(4) Built Environment and Urban Design: Sprawling, suburban in many parts. High car dependence means more exposure to vehicle exhaust.  Outdoor activities more common in certain demographics (eg, beach culture).

(5) Cultural and Psychosocial Stressors: Cultural emphasis on appearance, wealth, and entertainment may increase psychosocial pressure.  Homelessness crisis also creates variable community stress exposures.

(6) Economic and Occupational Exposures: Gig economy widespread, leading to precarious employment. Hollywood and tech industries also introduce unique workplace stress patterns.

(7) Healthcare Access and Public Policy: California’s public health programs are progressive, but uninsured rates still high. Proximity to cutting-edge research centers can boost care quality for some.

So one's exposome is a product of what one wants or gets from life, mapped onto a risk analysis table.  In New York City, one copes with urban pollution and persistent subway dust in an increasingly variable climate marked by periods of high humidity, a dietary range determined by one's wealth, the advantage of a good (if not always pleasant) mass transit system and the possibility of a “walking distance” lifestyle, albeit it in usually crowded, fast-paced surroundings.  Employment conditions are mixed and access to quality health care is a product of one's insurance status or wealth.

In Dubai, one lives with frequent dust storms, months of intense heat and UV exposure, a dependence on food imports, the constant temptation of fast food (FSS; fat, salt, sugar).  The car-centric lifestyle has created a built environment described as “pedestrian-hostile” and there are sometimes severe legal limits on the personal freedom especially for migrant workers who are subject to heat exposure and limited labor rights (even those which exist often not enforced).  The health system distinctly is tiered (based on wealth) and almost exclusively privatized.

The air quality in Los Angeles greatly has improved since the 1970s but climate change has resulted in the more frequent intrusion of smoke from wildfires and the prevailing UV exposure tends to be high; the climate is not as “mild” as once it was rated.  While there are pockets in which walkability is good, Los Angeles mostly is a car-dependent culture and the coverage and frequency of mass-transit has in recent decades declined.  Although this is not unique to the city, there's heightened awareness of a sensitivity to specific cultural pressures based on appearances and perceptions of lifestyle while housing stress is increasing.  Economic pressures are being exacerbated by the growth of the gig economy and traditionally secure forms of employment are being displaced by AI (bots, robots and hybrids).  Although California's healthcare system is sometimes described as "progressive", on the ground, outcomes are patchy.

So each location shapes the exposome in distinctive ways and the potential exists for the process better to be modelled so public health interventions and policies can be adjusted.  Of course, some risks are global: anywhere on the planet there’s always the chance one might be murdered by the Freemasons but some things which might seem unlikely to be affected by location turn out also to be an exposome variable. Because planet Earth is (1) roughly spherical, (2) and travels through space (where concepts like up & down don’t apply) and (3) constantly is exposed to meteoroids (every day Earth receives tons of “space dust”), it would be reasonable to assume one is equally likely to be struck by a meteoroid wherever one may be.  However, according to NASA (the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration), strikes are not equally likely everywhere, some latitudes (and regions) being more prone, due to several factors:

(1) Because Earth’s rotation and orbital motion create a bias, meteoroids tend more often to approach from the direction of Earth’s orbital motion (the “apex direction”), meaning the leading hemisphere (the side facing Earth's motion, near the dawn terminator) sees more meteoroid entries than the trailing hemisphere.  On a global scale, the effect is small but is measurable with the risk increasing as one approaches the equatorial regions where rotational velocity is greatest.

(2) Because most meteoroids approach from near the plane of the Solar System (the ecliptic plane), there’s what NASA calls a “latitude distribution bias”: Earth’s equator being tilted only some 23.5° from the ecliptic, meteoroids are more likely to intersect Earth’s atmosphere near lower latitudes (the tropical & sub-tropical zones) than near the poles.  So, those wishing to lower their risk should try to live in the Arctic or Antarctic although those suffering chronic kosmikophobia (fear of cosmic phenomena) are likely already residents.

(3) Some 70% of the Earth’s surface area being the seas and oceans, statistically, most meteoroids land in the water rather than in land so the lesson is clear: avoid living at sea.  The calculated probability is of course just math; because sparsely populated deserts accumulate meteorites better because erosion is low, a large number have been found in places like the Sahara and outback Australia but those numbers reflect a preservation bias and don’t necessarily confirm a higher strike rate.  The lesson from the statisticians is: Don’t dismiss the notion of living in a desert because of a fear of being struck by a meteoroid.

(4) Gravitational focusing, although it does increase Earth’s meteoroid capture rates (disproportionately so for objects travelling more slowly), is a global effect so there is no known locational bias.  While there is at least one documented case of a person being struck by a meteoroid, the evidence does suggest the risk is too low to be statistically significant and should thus not be factored into the calculation of one’s exposome because one is anywhere at greater risk of being murdered by the Freemasons.

Ms Ann Hodges with bruise, Alabama, September. 1952.  Painful though it would have been, she did get  her “15 minutes of fame” and eventually sold the fragment for US$25 so there was that.

In the narrow technical sense, many people have been struck by objects from space (as estimated 40+ tons of the stuff arrives every day) but most fragments are dust particles, too small to be noticed.  The only scientifically verified injury a person has suffered was an impressively large bruise a meteorite (the part of a meteoroid that survives its fiery passage through the atmosphere to land on Earth’s surface) on 10 September 1954 inflicted on Ms Ann Hodges (1920-1972) of Sylacauga, Alabama in the US.  Weighing 7.9 lb (3.6 kg), the intruder crashed through the roof of her house and bounced off a radio, striking her while enjoying a nap on the sofa.  The meteoroid was called Sylacauga and, just as appropriately, the offending meteorite was named the Hodges Fragment.  Anatomically modern humans (AMH) have been walking the planet for perhaps 300,000 years and we’ve been (more or less) behaviorally modern (BMH) for maybe a quarter of that so it’s possible many more of us have been struck,  In the absence of records, while it’s impossible to be definitive, it’s likely more have been murdered by the Freemasons that have ever been killed by stuff falling from space although, as the history of species extinction illustrates, a direct hit on someone is not a prerequisite for dire consequences.

Dashcam footage of meteorite fragment in the sky over Lexington, South Carolina.

The cosmic intruder crashed through the roof of a house on 26 June, 2025 and although there were no injuries, Fox News reported the fragment left a hole in the floor “about the size of a large cherry tomato”.  Analysis determined the rock was from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and as well as the dramatic fireball many captured on their dashcams, it would briefly have broken the sound barrier as it entered Earth’s atmosphere.  It was also very old, dating from slightly before the formation of the Solar System’s rocky inner planets (one of which is Earth) some 4.56 billion years ago and such fragments are of interest to many branches of science because they represent a small part of the “basic building blocks” of those planets and can thus assist in understanding the processes active during the Solar System’s earliest days.  Curiously (to those not trained in such things), the cosmologists explained “such a small fragment didn’t present a threat to anyone” which seems strange given its impact left a small crater in a floor, one implication being one wouldn’t wish for such a thing to hit one’s skull.  That the impact happened in Georgia, a state adjacent to Alabama where a half-century earlier the unfortunate Ms Hodges was struck, may make some add “meteorite fragments” to their list of “exposome factors south of the Mason-Dixon Line” but the sample size is too small for conclusions to be drawn and the events are mere geographic coincidences.

Doomsday

Doomsday (pronounced doomz-dey)

(1) In Christian eschatology, the day of the Last Judgment, at the end of the world (sometimes capital letter); the end of days; the end of times.

(2) Any day of judgment or sentence (sometimes initial capital).

(3) In casual use, the destruction of the world, since the 1950s, by means of nuclear weapons.

(4) As doomsday weapon(s), the device(s) causing the destruction of the world; anything capable of causing widespread or total destruction.

(5) Given to or marked by forebodings or predictions of impending calamity; especially concerned with or predicting future universal destruction.

(6) As Doomsday Clock, a symbolic warning device indicating how close humanity is to destroying the world, run since 1947 as a private venture by the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Pre 1000: A compound from the Middle English domes + dai from the Old English construct dom (judgment) + dæg (day), dōmesdæg (sometimes dōmes dæg) (Judgment Day) and related to the Old Norse domsdagr.  Dome was borrowed from the Middle French dome & domme (which survives in Modern French as dôme), from the Italian duomo, from the Latin domus (ecclesiae) (literally “house (of the church)”), a calque of the Ancient Greek οἶκος τῆς ἐκκλησίας (oîkos tês ekklēsías); doublet of domus.  Dom was from the Proto-West Germanic dōm and was cognate with the Old Frisian dōm, the Old Saxon dōm, the Old High German tuom, the Old Norse dómr and the Gothic dōms.  The Germanic source was from a stem verb originally meaning “to place, to set”, a sense-development also found in the Latin statutum and the Ancient Greek θέμις (thémis).  Dai had the alternative forms deg, deag & dœg all from the Proto-West Germanic dag; it was cognate with the Old Frisian dei, the Old Saxon dag, the Old Dutch dag, the Old High German tag, the Old Norse dagr and the Gothic dags.

In medieval England, doomsday was expected when the world's age had reached 6,000 years from the creation, thought to have been in 5200 BC and English Benedictine monk, the Venerable Bede (circa 672-735) complained of being pestered by rustici (the "uneducated and coarse-mannered, rough of speech"), asking him "how many years till the sixth millennium be endeth?"  However, despite the assertions (circa 1999) of the Y2K doomsday preppers, there is no evidence to support the story of a general panic in Christian Europe in the days approaching the years 800 or 1000 AD.  The use to describe a hypothetical nuclear bomb powerful enough to wipe out human life (or all life) on earth is from 1960 but the speculation was the work of others than physicists and the general trend since the 1960s has been towards smaller devices although paradoxically, this has been to maximize the destructive potential through an avoidance of the "surplus ballistic effect" (ie the realization by military planners that blasting rubble into to smaller-sized rocks was "wasted effort and bad economics").

The Domesday Book

Domesday is a proper noun that is used to describe the documents known collectively as the Domesday Book, at the time an enormous survey (a kind of early census) ordered by William I (circa 1028-1087; styled usually as William the Conqueror, King of England 1066-1087) in 1085.  The survey enumerated all the wealth in England and determined ownership in order to assess taxes.  Domesday was the Middle English spelling of doomsday, and is pronounced as doomsday.

Original Domesday book, UK National Archives, London.

The name Domesday Book (which was Doomsday in earlier spellings) was first recorded almost a century after 1086.  An addition to the manuscript was made probably circa 1114-1119 when it was known as the Book of Winchester and between then and 1179, it acquired the name by which it has since been known.  Just to clarify its status, the Treasurer of England himself announced “This book is called by the native English Domesday, that is Day of Judgement” (Dialogus de scaccario), adding that, like the Biblical Last Judgment, the decisions of Domesday Book were unalterable because “… as from the Last Judgment, there is no further appeal.”  This point was reinforced by a clause in the Dialogue of the Exchequer (1179) which noted “just as the sentence of that strict and terrible Last Judgement cannot be evaded by any art or subterfuge, so, when a dispute arises in this realm concerning facts which are written down, and an appeal is made to the book itself, the evidence it gives cannot be set at nought or evaded with impunity.”  It was from this point that began in England the idea of the centralised written record taking precedence over local oral traditions, the same concept which would evolve as the common law.

The Doomsday Book described in remarkable detail the landholdings and resources of late eleventh century England and is illustrative of both the power of the government machine by the late medieval period and its deep thirst for information.  Nothing on the scale of the survey had been undertaken in contemporary Europe, and was not matched in comprehensiveness until the population censuses of the nineteenth century although, Doomsday is not a full population census, the names appearing almost wholly restricted to landowners who could thus be taxed.  It was for centuries used for administrative and legal purposes and remains often the starting point for many purposes for historians but of late has been subject to an increasingly detailed textual analysis and it’s certainly not error-free.

The Doomsday Clock

The Doomsday Clock is a symbol that represents the likelihood of a man-made global catastrophe.  Maintained since 1947 by the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BOTAS), the clock was created as a metaphor for threat to humanity posed by nuclear weapons.  On the clock, a hypothetical global catastrophe is represented as the stroke of midnight and BOTAS’s view of the closeness to that hour being reached by the number of minutes or seconds to midnight.  Every January, BOTAS’s Science and Security Board committee meets to decide where the second-hand of the clock should point and in recent years, other risk factors have been considered, including disease and climate change, the committee monitoring developments in science and technology that could inflict catastrophic damage.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

These concerns do have a long history in philosophy and theology but the use in 1945 of nuclear fission to create atomic weapons focused the minds of many more on the possibilities, the concerns growing in the second half of the twentieth century as the bombs got bigger and proliferated extraordinarily to the point where, if all were detonated in the right place at the right time, almost everyone on Earth would have been killed several times over.  At least on paper, the threat was real and even before Hiroshima made the world suddenly aware of the matter, there had been some in apocalyptic mood: Winston Churchill's (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) “finest hour” speech in 1940 warning of the risk civilization might “…sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science”.  It had been a growing theme in liberal interwar politics since the implications of technology and the industrialisation of warfare had been writ large by the World War I (1914-1918).

HG Wells’ (1866–1946) last book was Mind at the End of its Tether (1945), a slim volume, best remembered for the fragment “…everything was driving anyhow to anywhere at a steadily increasing velocity”, seemingly describing a world which had become more complicated, chaotic and terrifying than anything he had prophesized in his fiction. In this it’s often contrasted with the spirit of cheerful optimism and forward-looking stoicism of the book he published a few months earlier, The Happy Turning (1945), but that may be a misreading.  Mind at the End of its Tether is a curious text, easy to read yet difficult to reduce to a theme; in his review, George Orwell (1903-1950) called it “disjointed” and it does have a quality of vagueness, some chapters hinting at despair for all humanity, others suggesting hope for the future.  It’s perhaps the publication date that tints the opinions of some.  Although released some three months after the first use of atomic bombs in August 1945, publishing has lead-times and Wells hadn’t heard of the A-bomb at the time of writing although, he had in 1914 predicted such a device in The World Set Free.  In writing Mind at the End of its Tether, Wells, the great seer of science, wasn’t in dark despair at news of science’s greatest achievement, nuclear fission, but instead a dying man disappointed about the terrible twentieth century which, at the end of the nineteenth, had offered such promise.

In 1947, though the USSR had still not even tested an atomic bomb and the US enjoyed exclusive possession of the weapon, BOTAS was well aware it was only a matter of time and the clock was set at seven minutes to midnight.  Adjustments have been made a couple of dozen times since, the most optimistic days being in 1991 with the end of the Cold War when it was seventeen minutes to midnight and the most ominous right now, BOTAS in 2023 choosing 90 seconds, ten seconds worse than the 100 settled on in 2020.

The committee each year issues an explanatory note and in 2021 noted the influences on their decision.  The COVID-19 pandemic was a factor, not because it threatened to obliterate civilization but because it “…revealed just how unprepared and unwilling countries and the international system are to handle global emergencies properly. In this time of genuine crisis, governments too often abdicated responsibility, ignored scientific advice, did not cooperate or communicate effectively, and consequently failed to protect the health and welfare of their citizens.  As a result, many hundreds of thousands of human beings died needlessly”.  COVID-19 they noted, will eventually recede but the pandemic, as it unfolded, was “a vivid illustration that national governments and international organizations are unprepared to manage nuclear weapons and climate change, which currently pose existential threats to humanity, or the other dangers—including more virulent pandemics and next-generation warfare—that could threaten civilization in the near future”.  In 2023, the adjustment was attributed mostly to (1) the increased risk of the use of nuclear weapons after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, (2) climate change, (3) biological threats such as COVID-19 and (4) the spread of disinformation through disruptive technology such as generative AI (artificial intelligence).

The acceleration of nuclear weapons programs by many countries was thought to have increased instability, especially in conjunction with the simultaneous development of delivery systems increasingly adaptable to the use of conventional or nuclear warheads.  The concern was expressed this “may raise the probability of miscalculation in times of tension”.  Governments were considered to have “…failed sufficiently to address climate change” and that while “fossil fuel use needs to decline precipitously if the worst effects of climate change are to be avoided”, instead “…fossil fuel development and production are projected to increase”.  Political factors were also mentioned including the corrosive effects of “false and misleading information disseminated over the internet…, a wanton disregard for science and the large-scale embrace” of conspiracy theories often “driven by political figures”.  They did offer a glimmer of hope, notably the change of administration in the US to one with a more aggressive approach to climate change policy and a renewed commitment to nuclear arms control agreements but it wasn’t enough to convince them to move the hands of the clock.  It remains a hundred seconds to midnight.

The clock is not without critics, even the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) expressing disapproval since falling under the control of Rupert Murdoch (b 1931).  There is the argument that after seventy years, its usefulness has diminished because over those decades it has become "the boy who cried wolf": a depiction of humanity on the precipice of the abyss yet life went on.  Questions have also been raised about the narrowness of the committee and whether a body which historically has had a narrow focus on atomic weapons and security is adequately qualified to assess the range of issues which should be considered.  Mission creep too is seen as a problem.  The clock began as a means of expressing the imminence of nuclear war.  Is it appropriate to use the same mechanism to warn of impending climate change which has anyway already begun and is likely accelerating?  Global thermo-nuclear war can cause a catastrophic loss of life and societal disruption within hours, whereas the climate catastrophe is projected to unfolds over decades and centuries.  Would a companion calendar be a more helpful metaphor?  The criticism may miss the point, the clock not being a track of climate change but of political will to do something to limit and ameliorate the effects (everyone having realised it can’t be stopped).