While enjoying some classic Iron Maiden recently, I wondered about the implicitly titular Doomsday Clock, and where it might be set. Well, guess what? As I type, it actually is two minutes to midnight.
The Doomsday clock’s Wikipedia page has a helpful table listing all of the times the clock’s setting has been changed, and the rationale for doing so. And a quick perusal reveals that since 2007, climate change has been used as a determining factor.
The clock’s initial setting in 1947—about as soon as it was clear that worldwide nuclear war was a possibility—was seven minutes to midnight. The earliest the clock has ever been set is 17 minutes to midnight. That was in 1991, concurrent with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
We’re now tied for the latest the clock has been set. It’s been at two minutes to midnight only once before. That was in 1953, right after the United States tested its first thermonuclear device, and right before the Soviets did. (We only got to three minutes to midnight in the mid-’80s, when the Iron Maiden song was written and recorded.)
When climate change began to be considered as input, the setting was five minutes to midnight. Since then, every move toward midnight (including the first half-minute movements, last year and this year) has included it as a reason for the adjustment.
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