“The Tree” in this series, represents the individual person or our society in general.
Five minutes to midnight refers to the Doomsday Clock. It’s MUCH closer now ! The poor tree here (in this case representing the world and its peoples, of whom we individuals are each a part) has got some kind of blight and has lost its leaves; the trunk has been shored up with bricks. The wheel represents overproduction, misuse of resources and the environment.
I made this maybe a decade ago, when the Doomsday Clock was “only” at five minutes to midnight; it is a lot closer now. Shockingly close! If you want to see how close, check the URL below. Warning: It’s “seconds” now, not minutes! Symbolic seconds, of course.
The Doomsday Clock, in case you don’t remember, represents the danger that scientists feel that the world is in. It started out in 1945 standing for the risk of atomic destruction but now, “The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies.” The good news is that the clock setting has sometimes gone backwards as well as forwards.
(If you want to know more ): https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/