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The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists issued a press advisory today indicating that they will move the hands of the Doomsday Clock on Wednesday, January 17. Hint: They’re moving it closer to midnight, which is bad, citing Iran & North Korea, loose nuclear material in the FSU, escalating terrorism (thanks, George), and — opening the door to Mother Nature’s wrath for the first time as far as I know — global warming! Okay, okay, so global warming is not directly impacting the Doomsday Clock wth its threat of rising sea levels, agricultural disasters, and water wars (though it should), but rather it increases the pressure to build proliferation-friendly nuclear reactors in an attempt to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. That’s a debate for another day.

To put things in perspective, today we stand at seven minutes to midnight; we have not been closer than this to armageddon since the 1980’s, when kids like me were growing up convinced that Red Dawn and The Day After could happen at any moment. (My friends Ben, Kevin, Joel and Steve and I could line up in the order of distance from the primary nuclear target of Homestead Air Force Base if you asked us to. It was as natural as playing G.I. Joe to us.) The Clock went from seven to four minutes before midnight in 1981, thanks to deployments in Europe of mobile SS-20 and MX missiles as well as bad news from Afghanistan, Iraq v. Iran, and general middle eastern shenanigans. It ticked up again to three minutes till in 1984, as President Reagan’s arms buildup goaded the Soviets toward the financial breaking point, the US invaded Grenada and fought with the Cubans, and the Soviets shot down Korean Airlines flight 007. Then along came Gorbachev and the signing of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty, and the clock rolled back to six minutes till in 1988. The end of the Cold War set it back to ten minutes till in 1990.

Ah, those were the good old days.