The Doomsday Clock:
Two Minutes Till Midnight
At the near tipping point of the world
that tilts ever more sharply now,
greed and brutality slide down toward
the vast abyss that gaps beneath us
and we stand at the still edge of rapture
as the candy-colored clown laughs
half-aloud his metamorphic chuckle
and the earth we walk upon buckles
like an uprooted sidewalk in a sideshow
farce that plays on and on forever:
a forgotten suburban nightmare
where dreams tumble down slowly
into dreams and we are left standing
dizzy on the thin precipice of a myth.
And now it’s time to panic. In The Uninhabitable Earth, David Wallace-Wells warns us that “No matter how well informed you are, you are surely not alarmed enough.”
The Doomsday Clock is ticking, and it’s less than two minutes to midnight. “Midnight” is the total destruction of the environment and with it the destruction of many species of life, including homo sapiens.
We can no longer control the fires around us, but still we burn the Earth with petroleum and coal. Even the Bible predicts our fiery Hell, which is turning out to be man-made.
Featured Photograph: Ohio River Sunset by Bernie Kasper