The symbolic Doomsday Clock edged closer to apocalypse on Tuesday, set at 85 seconds to midnight by scientists citing escalating risks from nuclear weapons, climate change, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology amid eroding global cooperation.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the clock from last year’s 89 seconds, marking the nearest point to midnight since its inception nearly 80 years ago.
Midnight signifies the moment humanity renders Earth uninhabitable.
“Humanity has not made sufficient progress on the existential risks that endanger us all,” said Alexandra Bell, the group’s president and CEO, per CNN.
“The Doomsday Clock is a tool for communicating how close we are to destroying the world with technologies of our own making. The risks we face from nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies are all growing. Every second counts and we are running out of time. It is a hard truth, but this is our reality.”
Daniel Holz, chair of the Bulletin’s science and security board and a professor in physics, astronomy, and astrophysics at the University of Chicago, said nations ignored prior warnings and grew more aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic.
“Rather than heed this warning, major countries became even more aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic,” Holz said, CNN reported. “Conflicts intensified in 2025 with multiple military operations involving nuclear-armed states. The last remaining treaty governing nuclear weapons stockpiles between the US and Russia will soon expire on February 4. For the first time in over half a century, there will be nothing preventing a runaway nuclear arms race.”
He pointed to threats from the Russia-Ukraine war, May’s India-Pakistan conflict, and questions over Iran’s nuclear capabilities following U.S. and Israeli strikes last summer.
On climate, Holz noted record atmospheric carbon dioxide and global sea levels, with intensifying droughts, fires, floods, and storms expected to worsen.
“… [G]rave dangers persist in the life sciences, particularly in emerging areas such as the development of synthetic mirror life, despite repeated warnings from scientists worldwide,” Holz added. “The international community has no coordinated plan, and the world remains unprepared for potentially devastating biological threats.”
AI’s unchecked expansion amplifies misinformation and disinformation, hindering responses to other crises and worsening disasters, he said. “If the world splinters into an us-versus-them, zero-sum approach, it increases the likelihood that we all lose,” Holz added, according to CBS News.
Maria Ressa, cofounder and CEO of the Filipino news outlet Rappler, emphasized the role of facts in unity.
“Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust,” Ressa said, CNN reported. “Without these three, we have no shared reality. We can’t have journalism. We can’t have democracy. The radical collaboration this moment demands becomes impossible. Think of shared facts as the operating system of collective action.”
The clock, created in 1947 by Manhattan Project scientists to symbolize humanity’s potential self-destruction, initially focused on nuclear threats but expanded in 2007 to include climate risks. Time adjustments reflect consultations among experts, including Nobel laureates.
It reached 17 minutes from midnight in 1991, after the end of the Cold War and the signing of a U.S.-Soviet arms treaty. Recent years saw it at 100 seconds in 2020-2022, 90 seconds in 2023-2024, and 89 seconds last year due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other factors.
The Bulletin said reversing the trend requires bold international action and public engagement to combat threats created by humans.
“Every time we’ve been able to turn back the hands of the clock, it’s been because we had scientists and experts working to find solutions and a public that was demanding action,” Bell said, per CBS.
“We at the Bulletin believe that because humans created these threats, we can reduce them,” said Rachel Bronson, a senior adviser and former president and CEO, per CNN. “But doing so is not easy, nor has it ever been. And it requires serious work and global engagement at all levels of society.”
