Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

There's barely a year goes by without some whacko telling us the world is about to end. This year it's the turn of scientists who calculate how close we are to the edge of oblivion, and rate the risk on the face of the Doomsday Clock.

Of course they're not the first – and won't be the last – cheerful chappies to decide that our lives will be much better with a sense of death, destruction and foreboding hanging over us.

The Mayans had a crack at it a couple of years ago, when their calendar abruptly ran out of days. The pessimists around us took it to mean that the world, as we know it, was also about to kark it. If you are reading this, then it turns out, they were wrong.

Religious nutters, wearing sandwich boards in major cities around the world, tell us every day that the end is nigh. They must be quite surprised every morning when they wake up and find it's still there. The Blood Moon of September was supposed to get real messy. Turns out, it was only embarrassing. For those who prophesised otherwise.

Then we have the doomsters predicting a comet will wipe us out. And various line-ups of planets will spell a nasty end to civilisation.

End of days
F Kenton Beshore predicted major mayhem with the return of Jesus in 1988, based on one biblical generation (40 years) of the founding of Israel. When that didn't happen, he re-defined the length of a generation to 70-80 years, so has now pinned his bets on 2021. So he's effectively had a second coming of the second coming.

The Messiah Foundation is pretty sure the world ends in 2026, when an asteroid will collide with earth. There's a one in 300,000 chance, apparently.

Sir Isaac Newton calculated, from Bible research, that Jesus will rapture his church one jubilee from the time of Israel re-acquiring Jerusalem, which is 2060.

And you have to hand it to Sir Isaac, he knew his stuff. He must have paid a lot of attention in Mr Dixon's maths classes. Predicting the earth is probably roundish, building a reflecting telescope and inventing gravity. Until then, we were all just floating around and didn't need shoes. He was probably sponsored by Hush Puppies.

The clock is ticking
This latest apocalyptic promise comes from the Doomsday Clock keepers. Apparently its hands of doom are pointing at three minutes to midnight; a couple of minutes closer to oblivion than in recent years. The so-called scientists behind the Clock say our risk of annihilation is increased due to: heightened tensions between the ruskies and the yanks; North Korea's dabbling in nuclear horrors; and lack of action against climate change.

Apparently it's the closest we've come to getting completely wasted, since 1983 and the height of the Cold War in ‘84. To blame for the latest change: Nuclear threats, including those loose units in India and Pakistan; and uncertainty about the climate talkfest in Paris resulting in any worthwhile changes to supposedly save the planet.

Eric Clapton chipped in with his own version around about the same era, offering a prediction that 'after midnight, we're gonna find what it is all about”.

Here at RR headquarters we'd throw in these risks to humanity: Trump gaining any political power, Clayton Cosgrove's eyebrows making a resurgence and smothering half the planet in a giant mono-brow... or even joining forces with Trump's comb-over and suffocating civilisation as we know it; something happens to Richie McCaw; cute cat videos taking over the internet and then eating our brains; the PC do-gooders manage to outlaw the chocolate in chocolate chip cookies.

The closest the Clock has come to midnight was in 1953, when it ticked as close as two minutes away, when the Soviets tested a hydrogen bomb following US tests.

Bucket list
So folks, I'd suggest this weekend if there's anything you've like to achieve before the end of the world, hurry up and get on with it. Hike the Tongariro Crossing – or at least, the Wharf Street Pedestrian Crossing. Dance like no-one is watching. Love like you hurt yourself dancing, sing quietly to yourself cos you're a tone deaf idiot.

Take from the filthy rich and give to the moderately rich. Write that generous cheque for the Rabbit Retirement Fund.

Maybe take the leap this weekend, because if the Doomsday Clock is to be believed (and don't we believe everything scientists tell us?) then we're running out of time.

Send us your list of things you'd like to see or do, before the world ends, to brian@thesun.co.nz. We'll publish the best next week, if the world is still here.

The best responses will win a place in the Rogers Rabbits Doomsday-Proof Bunker Burrow. That's right, your chance to secure a place to witness the end of the world, alongside your favourite columnist and his eclectic assortment of rabid relatives and eccentric friends. Hope you like bottled water and Chinese checkers. Bring your own rum, our supplies will be rationed.

And once the clock does strike midnight, remember those instructions from Mr Clapton: 'After midnight, we're gonna let it all hang down. After midnight, we're gonna chug-a-lug and shout.”

And yes, some will probably dance like no-one is watching. Muppets.