Doomsday Clock

   The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947, during the Cold War, and at the time, it was 7 minutes to midnight.  The clock was created by Martyl Langsdorf for a 1947 magazine cover and since then was used to show how close humanity is to extinction. 

   The Doomsday Clock has moved closer to midnight, the closest ever. This means that humanity is on the brink of a world-ending catastrophe such as pandemic, world war, environmental destruction.   

   The clock stayed at 7 minutes until 1949 when it was changed to 3 minutes, and then down to 2 in 1953. This was a huge decrease in the amount of time and was due to the Cuban Missile Crisis when the USSR moved nuclear weapons to Cuba, very close to the U.S mainland.

   Since then, it has jumped up and down in the amount of time to midnight, depending on what events are happening. In the past 3 years it has been getting closer and closer, and in 2020, it was set to only 100 seconds from midnight.

   We are closer to mass extinction than ever before due to potential wars such as Russia and the U.S, environmental issues such as mass amounts of garbage, and a coronavirus. Many people are worried about extinction because of this, but the time could change at any moment.

   The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists who maintain the clock meet twice a year and move it when it is needed. With this fact the clock could increase or decrease in the amount of time left, depending on whether or not the global conflicts are resolved.

   The world is in a state of everlasting change, hopefully change for the better, and hopefully the clock will be set back a few minutes.

   As of right now, the U.S. and Iran have high tensions after the U.S. conducted a drone strike that killed the top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. Iran then said that it would retaliate, and with the deterioration of the Iran Nuclear Deal, Iran may try to build and use a nuclear weapon.

   The city of Wuhan in the province of Hubei, China has been plagued with a disease that has been rampaging over the country side and has even made it all the way to the US. The Coronavirus, as it has been named, has killed approximately 2,200 people in China, but this could be chalked up to poor healthcare in the country.

   Because of these events, the clock has been moved to only 100 second from midnight, figuratively, the closest we have been to complete annihilation. The question is, what will push humanity over the edge of extinction?

   Does humanity even deserve a second chance? With pollution like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Chernobyl, and other disasters, means this should be the end of us, and maybe it is. Humanity might just be living its last years.