I don’t know what’s more disturbing to me, the fact that it feels like we are moving closer and closer towards Doomsday or the fact that there is an actual “Doomsday Clock.”

Yes, there is a “Doomsday Clock,” this is no delusion of mine. Also no delusion is that the people that run the clock just moved it ahead to five minutes to midnight signaling that we are just that far away from “nuclear apocalypse and environmental disaster.”

Or so they put it.

Yeah, the clock is only symbolic of the demise of mankind, but still it’s creepy.

If you’re questioning just who came up with this timetable of destruction, apparently it was the board of directors who run Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. It’s a magazine that covers global security and public policies that are related to the dangers of nuclear weapons.

Fun stuff; I’m starting to wonder who exactly subscribes to this magazine.

The clock was introduced in 1947 and has appeared on each of the magazine’s covers since then.

The hands of the clock have been moved up and down over the past 60 years, depending on how dismal it is in the world.

In 1949 it was moved from seven minutes to midnight to three minutes to midnight when the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb.

The closest the clock has been to midnight was two minutes in 1953 when the U.S. and the Soviet Union tested thermonuclear devices within months of each other.

Seventeen minutes was the farthest away the clock was from midnight. That was in 1991 after the fall of the Berlin Wall and a couple of treaties between the U.S and the Soviet Union had been signed.

Just the thought of having a clock to count down the minutes to human destruction by way of nuclear war or environmental ruin is enough to make me want to roll my eyes.

With all the things that humans have to be anxious about we don’t need to see some science nerd getting up to change a clock that represents how close we are to termination.

Though, on the other hand, they could be right.

As if the world isn’t in enough turmoil with the wars, the genocides, homicides and other various crimes, Mother Nature seems to have genuinely had her fill with us.

Last year was the warmest year on record for the United States. And if this year wasn’t hot enough for you, forecasters say that 2007 will be even warmer. Warm enough to possibly break the world’s record set in 1998.

That’s right, it’s getting kind of balmy on this little planet of ours. And if you’re not nervous you should be.

It doesn’t take a genius to know something is going on with Mother Nature. She’s been testy these past few years, throwing weird weather patterns our way, making the wildlife go crazy and melting away the glaciers.

And this past year has been the strangest of all; cherry blossoms have bloomed in New York City and birds have refused go south.

Also, thousands of birds have even dropped dead from the sky in Texas and Australia.

And, of course, there are the blizzards that keep on burying Colorado.

Oh and there’s that big piece of ice that broke off in the Canadian Artic. Actually, it was a 25 square mile piece of ice that is about 3,000 years old.

Yeah, I’d say were in for it. Mother Nature is about to throw us out on our rear ends, belongings and all.

But according to many forecasters the changing weather patterns and El Nino are a normal occurrence and are nothing to fret about.

Right, this from a guy who dances around in front of an animated map and tells us not to bring an umbrella to work the next day. And then it rains.

Now days trying get scientists to agree that global warming is happening because of human activity is the equivalent of trying to get Paula Abdul’s publicity people to admit she may have a problem with those back pills of hers.

Sorry weather dude, but when it comes time for midnight I’m going to have to go with the scientists that built an ark.

The point is, whether the climate is changing naturally or unnaturally, it is happening.

And we’ve got the clock of doom to prove it.