APOCALYPSE WATCH : Hard Rock Alarm

The most famous timepiece of the Cold War was the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. As the superpowers moved to or from the brink of war, its minute hand would tick toward or away from midnight and the knell of doom.

In a bow to the powerful symbolism of the Doomsday Clock, now comes the double meter just set running on the marquee of the Hard Rock Cafe in Beverly Center. The left-hand meter reports acres of rain forest. The right-hand meter reports world population. Only the first number, needless to say, is dropping.

A too hip see-and-be-scenery like the Hard Rock--serving Beverly Hills, trash capital of California (at one ton per capita per annum)--might not seem the beer hall of choice for a putsch against environmental devastation. But then again, if proprietor Peter Morton is no one to lead a putsch, he is certainly someone who knows how to read--and perhaps lead--the Zeitgeist. Let’s hope so.

For make no mistake: Though the Hard Rock Clock does not count minutes, its double tally rightly suggests that time is of the essence. The depletion of the ozone layer, the warming of the atmosphere, the desertification of the soil, the erosion of species diversity--all these join the destruction of Earth’s oxygen supply and the suicidal fertility of Homo sapiens to constitute a global peril. Any port in a storm, as the saying goes--and any alarm clock in a world dozing at the switch. The Hard Rock may not be everyone’s idea of an ideal medium, but there’s no denying the validity of the message.