90 Seconds To Midnight

As January and the Lunar New Year season draws to an end, the world hasn’t experienced much change, and things are just like they used to be. However, at least one thing has changed: The “clock”.

Your digital and mechanical clocks may not have changed and are ticking at the same speed. That’s because this “clock” isn’t your average one. The one in question gets dubbed the “Doomsday Clock.” Today, we’re talking about what this clock does, why its “time” has changed, and the possibility of nuclear war.

First things first, the Doomsday Clock, despite its name, isn’t a clock. You could think of it as a metaphor or symbol representing the likelihood of a human-made global catastrophe, most likely causing a mass extinction event and the end of homo sapiens, us. Created and maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1947, their opinion sets the clock annually to whatever time the Bulletin thinks right. That said, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists doesn’t only consider the likelihood of a nuclear armageddon (or nuclear holocaust) but many other factors worldwide.

Last year, we saw much escalation of tensions between NATO (and the United States) and Russia. That is one, though not exclusively, the reason that the Bulletin has decided to change the time on the Doomsday Clock from 100 seconds to midnight forward to 90 seconds, with midnight, in this case, meaning the human-made catastrophe. That’s the closest to midnight the clock has ever been. So why does the Bulletin think there’s a raised likelihood of a global disaster?

The most basic explanation is nuclear weapons, which the United States, Russia, and other countries like China and India have. With tensions rising between these nuclear superpowers, you could see how that could lead to an all-out World War III with nukes.

Anyway, the chances of a nuclear apocalypse have risen, many experts say, more than a decade before. We can only hope that the minute hand doesn’t ever have to reach midnight because if it does, it would be game over for humanity and most of life on Earth.

However, we shouldn’t only see nuclear war as a threat to humanity’s survival. Besides that, a whole truckload of things could also wipe out humanity. Climate change is also critical, not to mention other things we have to worry about, like the possibility of AI taking over the Earth. Climate change, or global warming in most cases, is caused by greenhouse gases (like CO2) being released into the atmosphere by our burning gasoline and fossil fuels. Climate scientists believe that if the world continues doing this, the world may become almost unsurvivable in the year 2050. We may not be able to change the course of escalating tensions between countries, but we can control our behaviour and make it more climate-friendly. Transitioning to a more renewable lifestyle and telling others to do the same could potentially downgrade the threat of a climate disaster, and we would have one less thing to worry. Remember always, the Doomsday Clock doesn’t care what causes doomsday; The clock only warns you of it.

So how does the Doomsday Clock warn us of a potential threat to humanity’s existence? Well, here’s what I think makes it both informative and, to some people, a silly concept. The Bulletin’s annual resetting of the clock, especially when moving the minute hand closer to midnight, represents the escalation of a threat. The wider public has one thing in common: We usually don’t perceive a threat until it’s too late because we only think of the present, not the long run. Changing this would make more people realize the potential menace. So if the Bulletin moved the clock forward, it could bring more attention to the actual problem.

However, it’s due to the not-so-relevant “time” on the clock that makes it a laughing stock and a silly concept for some people. These people think the changing of the clock in the opinion of the Bulletin, and not with solid proof, make it inaccurate and shouldn’t be taken seriously.

So what do you think about the Doomsday Clock? Even if you believe the clock is somewhat childish, what it symbolizes should be taken very seriously. But don’t worry that much. Because, in the end, it would take a lot for the leaders of the nuclear superpower countries to press that button, launch the nukes, and put out a death sentence for the world. That’s the end of this production from the New News Newsminute. Thank you for reading, and I hope you can stay safe.