Tick, Tick, Ticking of the Doomsday Clock

As I was enjoying my morning coffee yesterday, Canada AM host Seamus O'Reagan told me that the Doomsday Clock has been set two minutes closer to midnight. As of January 17, 2007, the big hand is on the 11 and the small hand is on the 12. Do you know what that means kids? It means that there are only five more minutes until midnight. That's right, five minutes 'til doomsday. Grab your hats and coats and head to the nearest exit. No pushing and shoving please, and don't forget to tip the hat check girl on your way out the door.

"What is the Doomsday Clock?" you ask. Good question. I asked the same one myself.

Seems that back in the late 1940's some pessimistic atomic scientists got together to commiserate about how the whole world was going to hell and I'm guessing that Jack Daniels facilitated the meeting. Somewhere around midnight, I'm betting, one gloomy fellow pitched the idea of a doomsday clock to count down to the end of the world. Of course, back in the 40's they all thought the world would end in a puffy mushroom cloud compliments of the Soviet Union. Lately though, weather anomalies and natural catastrophes have this same group of scientists thinking that mother nature may get us before the nukes do. They are so convinced of this, in fact, that they decided to go ahead and advance the clock a couple of minutes. How bad is it?

Well, since the clock was arbitrarily set at 7 minutes to midnight in 1947, the minute hand has been as far away as 19 minutes to midnight and as close as two minutes to midnight. The chart here illustrates the roller coaster ride of the Doomsday Clock's second hand since 1947 (from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists compliments of Wikimedia Commons).

As you can see, we came awfully close in 1953 when the US and Soviet Union were actively engaged in nuclear testing with only two minutes left before the end of the world. We managed to beat a hasty retreat, turning back the clock over a ten year period until 1968 when France and China pinned on their pennants and joined the nuclear arms race. Since 1968 we've been up and then down, down, down, nearly hitting bottom in 1984 with President Reagan. The furthest we have ever been from total destruction appears to have been in 1991 when the US and Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Tick, tick, tick and here we are in 2007. Iran is interested in nuclear weapons and North Korea continues testing their weapons in spite of admonishments from their neighbours in the global community. While weapons-grade plutonium cannot yet be purchased with the flash of an age of majority card at your local corner store, it seems to be much more available than it was in the past. As if worrying about Iran and North Korea isn't enough, we now have to be concerned about terrorist groups acquiring and deploying nuclear weapons. In the meantime, environmental stewards of planet earth are trying to control their fossil fuel consumption to avoid punching holes in the ozone layer as glaciers disappear from our northern landscapes. Even as I push my thermostat down to 62 degrees, I am wondering how this one small act can possibly compensate for years of nuclear testing. Surely nuclear tests are more destructive to the environment than a 13-year old, inefficient oil furnace.

Remember when man's biggest enemy was the bubonic plague. Kind of makes you long for simpler days huh?

Here's where I wonder if the clock isn't wrong. Isn't it more like 2 minutes past midnight? Haven't we already demonstrated, through years and years of reckless misuse of power and planet, that we are treating Earth in much the way an irresponsible teenager treats a house when his or her parents are away for the weekend?

Iran and North Korea are like the high school stoners gathered around a bong in the corner of the kitchen smoking up the place; it's unnerving, but it could get worse if they decide to pick a fight with the other kids so everybody leaves the room to talk about them behind their back. Like the high school football team, the United Nations is dancing with all the pretty girls in the living room but some of the players have had too much to drink; they start popping holes in the drywall and the quarterback initiates a game of keep away in the dining room running too fast for such close quarters, stepping on feet and jumping on the furniture. The terrorists are the unexpected party crashers from the rival high school who spray paint graffiti on the white aluminum siding, toilet paper the trees in the front yard and set the doghouse on fire. These unwelcome guests unwittingly unite the kids who agree that its time to call the cops and break up the party...until next time. The kids apologize, pull the Charmin out of the apple trees, and cross their fingers as they swear never to do it again. What happens? They re-offend. Why? Because they have not learned. They have not lost. Not enough. Not yet.

Is the clock wrong? I suppose not. In fact, as long as the minute hand is on this side of midnight, it suggests that we still have time to act. Like a final exam, as the minute hand approaches the appointed hour, both our pulse and our pace quickens. We gather up our things and head to the exam centre because for the next little while, nothing matters except passing that exam. In most cases, the rest of the world all but disappears as the door to the exam room closes. So no, I guess the clock isn't wrong.