Nina In New York: It's (Three Minutes To) The End Of The World As We Know It

A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
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By Nina Pajak

So, don't freak out or anything, but the end is nigh. And this isn't coming from one of those glazed over, grinning lunatics in the subway station. This is straight from the official brains at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. They've moved the "Doomsday Clock" two minutes up, bringing us three minutes to midnight.

Obviously, it's time to freak out. The doomsday clock! Three minutes? That's, like, so few minutes! And science! Baaaah! Also, what is the doomsday clock, and how long does a doomsday minute take to pass? Is it like a football minute, or a soccer minute, or worse, a basketball minute? Who are these scientists? What are their qualifications? What's their methodology? Is this some sort of viral marketing campaign for a science fiction television series and did they just pull an Orson Welles War of the Worlds on me?

Perhaps it's not yet time to freak out.

In case, like me, you're also pretending to know what any of this means, I'll fill you in briefly: the Atomic Scientists came together and invented the doomsday clock after they themselves worked on the Manhattan Project, thereby setting it in motion. That's an impressive level of personal accountability. They base their estimates on things like climate change (uh oh), nuclear proliferation (ummm), new technologies (jury's out), and global politics (er...). They consider all these factors and then devise how quickly we are nearing some unnamed, inevitable, world-ending disaster. Okay, I take it back. Grab the beans and head to the bomb shelters. I've had this pit in my stomach for years and now I know why.

I can't decide whether to process this as a metaphorical warning from a body of people who may or may not be personally biased but generally well-intentioned and concerned, or whether to go eat a whole pizza by myself and cancel my gym membership. And then, of course, I start worrying that my end-of-humanity instincts are really, really messed up. Wouldn't most people say: travel, spend time with family, profess their deepest feelings to those who matter most? I mean, I obviously want to do those things too. My bucket list is textured, okay? I just hope I have enough time to get to all of it.

On the one hand, it's important to remember that the clock has been at this point at various times in history, and we've been able to fix things enough to turn back time by a few minutes. On the other hand, ancient dinosaur alien sea monsters are beginning to surface, so this time may not be a drill.

Nina Pajak is a writer living with her husband, daughter and dog in Queens. Connect with Nina on Twitter!