We are now 90 seconds to our doom

Dr. Leonard Rieser, chairman of the board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, moves the hand of the Doomsday Clock back to 17 minutes before midnight at offices near the University of Chicago on November 26th, 1991. | Photo by Carl Wagner / Chicago Tribune / Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Fellow humans, we are now just 90 seconds away from our doom — also known as midnight on the Doomsday Clock. It’s “a metaphor for how close humanity is to self-annihilation,” according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which sets the time each year. And we’ve never been closer to the apocalypse.

While it’s just a metaphor, the decision to move the clock’s hands ...