We all know 2019 was a bit crappy, but now, scientists think 2020 is going to be even worse. Let’s be honest, it isn’t even the end of January and we’ve already been subjected to the coronavirus and tragically lost Kobe Bryant. Now, even science has turned against us and claims the end of the world is closer than ever!
The Doomsday Clock is a cheerful piece of apparatus that basically tells us how close we are to the end of days. In 1947, a group of scientists who’d helped create nuclear weapons for the Manhattan Project decided to mark humanity’s proximity to total annihilation with the physical metaphor of a clock.
Since then, we’ve been counting down to the apocalypse with the help of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Sorry to get your year off to a glum start, but with so much political unrest and climate change, things ain’t looking good for planet Earth.
Bombs Away
The Doomsday Clock has just been moved to 100 seconds to midnight, marking the closest it’s been to armageddon in its 75-year history. “Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear war and climate change—that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond,” said the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in a statement.
“The international security situation is dire, not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode.”
As the official site states, “The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies in other domains.”
Announcing the news on January 23, BAS President and CEO Rachel Bronson warned, “The world has entered into the realm of the two-minute warning, a period when danger is high and the margin for error low.” Thanks Rachel, no need to rub it in.
The reason for the Doomsday Clock’s move to the 100-second mark is also blamed on both Russia and the USA pulling out of 2019’s Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the wave of young people protesting climate change, a rise in “technology-propelled propaganda”, and general distrust for those with their fingers on the button. All in all, it’s not made for cheerful bedtime reading.
It turns out 1991 was a great year to be alive as the Doomsday Clock stood at a cheerful 17 minutes to midnight. Someone call Marty McFly. Let’s go back to the time of Beauty and the Beast, Bryan Adams releasing “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”, and Home Improvement first hit the airwaves.
The End Is Nigh
2020’s setting nudges our grim end ahead of 2018 and 1953 for the top position. Back in 1953, the USA and the Soviet Union’s testing of hydrogen bombs saw the Doomsday Clock stand at two minutes to midnight. It was a similar story in 2018 when tensions rose between North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un and the Trump administration. Jump forward two years and things are worse than ever.
Given that the situation between North Korea and the USA hasn’t exactly improved, it’s not really surprising the Doomsday Clock has moved forward. It’s interesting to note that nuclear weapons were the Doomsday Clock’s biggest concern when it was created — something that hasn’t changed over the past 73 years.
Ironically, the Clock should probably be even closer to midnight if the reports are to be believed. Bronson confirms the board set the time in November, which was before President Trump’s *erm* actions in Iran. As Bronson notes, “We are rapidly losing our bearings in a nuclear weapons landscape that may expand beyond our recognition.”
That being said, should we all be running for our nuclear bunkers and preparing for the end of the world as mankind descends into a Mad Max apocalypse? Ultimately, the Clock isn’t an actual scientific way of measuring when the world will end, and unless you’re a Terminator, it’s impossible to accurately predict.
No one knows what will actually end humanity’s reign, and for all we know, it could be aliens, zombies, or (if Watchmen is anything to by) giant interdimensional squid. Remember when the Mayans tipped us all for a fiery end in 2012? Elsewhere, remember we’re well overdue for the kind of meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago.
Still, the Doomsday Clock remains an important part of history and had a pretty noble aim of trying to spur political powers into peace. It might not work, but it’s there to remind us just how close we are to destroying life as we know it.