John Daly: I don’t mean to be a killjoy, but we are on the brink of doom – and don’t just take my word for it

Members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Siegfried S Hecker, Daniel Holz, Sharon Squassoni, Mary Robinson and Elbegdorj Tsakhia stand beside the 2023 Doomsday Clock in Washington last January. Photo: Getty

It’s 90 seconds to midnight – do you know where the nearest bomb shelter is? Despite the fact that we’re living through the traditional month of trashed credit cards, wicked weather and the lurking spectre of Covid, there are far bigger things to worry about. The Doomsday Clock is now poised at a minute and a half to midnight – the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been.

Conceived in 1947 by Albert Einstein and the scientists who worked on J Robert Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project, the Doomsday Clock takes the imagery of a midnight countdown to illustrate the impending apocalypse of nuclear war.