The metaphorical doomsday clock moved two minutes closer to midnight last week by scientists concerned about climate change. The 68-year-old concept was developed to gauge how close the world is to destruction, with the end coming at midnight. When the clock debuted, the time was set at 7 minutes to midnight in the wake of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The clock was used throughout the Cold War to indicate threats to total annihilation. The clock now stands at three minutes to midnight, the nearest to the end of the world since a US-Soviet standoff in the 1980s.
Doomsday Clock Keeps Ticking
Ian MacAllen
Ian MacAllen is the author of Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American (Rowman & Littlefield, April 2022). His writing has appeared in Chicago Review of Books, Southern Review of Books, The Offing, 45th Parallel Magazine, Little Fiction, Vol 1. Brooklyn, and elsewhere. He tweets @IanMacAllen and is online at IanMacAllen.com.