Does anyone really know what time it is?

Most Chicagoans, indeed, most Americans, have no idea what time it is. Though bombarded by clocks pulsating out numerals nearly everywhere they turn, they’re oblivious to the only clock that counts…the Doomsday Clock. Created right here at the University of Chicago by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in 1947, it was intended to metaphorically alert mankind to our march toward Midnight, signaling nuclear annihilation. Originally set at 7 minutes to midnight, it retreated as far away as 17 minutes from Armageddon with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, after reaching just two minutes till in 1953 at the height of the Cold War.

In 2007 the Bulletin began considering climate change, which along with lack of nuclear disarmament kept edging the minute hand forward. When 88,000 voters in three swing states ushered a climate denier and nuclear agreement withdrawer into the White House, the Bulletin matched the 1953 setting of two minutes in 1953. Just this month the Bulletin moved the clock forward again, 20 seconds, just 100 more ticks to Adios Mother Earth. Why?  That man in the White House withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, feverishly promoting fossil fuel development, withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, marching the US up to the brink of war with Iran. The Doomsday Clock appears to be telling us all that it’s time for him to go.