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If you needed a fresh dose of existential dread to round out your hump day, the Doomsday Clock has arrived right on schedule—earlier, actually.
On Tuesday, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that the iconic clock now sits at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to its symbolic endpoint. Midnight, in this case, is not a metaphor anyone wants tested: it represents global catastrophe.
The Doomsday Clock, created in 1947 by scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, is reset annually based on how close experts believe the world is to self-destruction. Nuclear war remains the big one, but climate change, biological threats and the accelerating role of artificial intelligence have also become core factors in recent years
So why the sudden tick forward—from 89 seconds last year to 85 now? The Bulletin points to a grim mix of escalating global tensions and fraying cooperation. Nuclear powers, including Russia, China and the United States, are described as increasingly aggressive and nationalistic, while long-standing diplomatic frameworks are eroding. Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine looms large, as do rising tensions in the Middle East, Asia and between nuclear-armed rivals elsewhere.
When you add climate change to the pile (which is still not meaningfully addressed at the global level), you get a planet heating up while political trust falters. Then there’s AI, which scientists say is being integrated into military systems faster than guardrails can be built, raising the stakes for accidents, miscalculations and misuse. The Bulletin has also flagged the risk of AI-assisted biological threats and how disinformation now often spreads faster than facts.
Alexandra Bell, president and CEO of the Bulletin, didn’t mince words in announcing the update. “Catastrophic risks are on the rise, cooperation is on the decline and we are running out of time,” Bell said in a press release. “Change is both necessary and possible, but the global community must demand swift action from their leaders.”
To be fair, it’s not all doom without a dash of hope. The Bulletin noted that last year brought tentative signs of progress, including talk of de-escalation in major conflicts and renewed discussion around nuclear limits. Those moments, however, were quickly overtaken by what the group calls “negative trends.”
Historically speaking, this is as bad as it’s ever looked. The clock was set farthest from midnight—17 whole minutes—in 1991, after the Cold War thawed. Since then, it’s been creeping steadily forward, slowly moving from minutes into seconds.
The Bulletin is clear that the clock can move backward if global leaders choose cooperation over confrontation. But for now, though, the message is every second counts.