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85 Seconds to midnight: Humanity has never been this close to doomsday
85 Seconds to midnight: Scientists warn humanity has never been this close to doomsday
Nuclear tensions, climate breakdown and runaway technologies push the Doomsday Clock to its most dangerous setting ever.
New Delhi: This week, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that the Doomsday Clock, the world's most famous symbolic indicator of humanity's proximity to global catastrophe, is now set at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been since 1947. This is a warning from scientists that humanity is edging closer to global catastrophe than ever before. From nuclear flashpoints and climate collapse to the unchecked rise of artificial intelligence, experts say the risks facing the world are no longer distant threats, but present-day dangers.
Updated by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Board, which includes Nobel Laureates and experts across science and policy disciplines, the Doomsday Clock shows growing fears over nuclear war, climate change, geopolitical instability and emerging technologies. The move to 85 seconds marks the closest the symbolic clock has ever come to midnight, the point representing total global disaster such as nuclear war, environmental collapse or some other civilisation-ending event.
Many political leaders, scientists and others often treat the clock's annual update like a weather forecast for the world's safety. This year, it moved to 85 seconds to midnight, closer than ever before. Last year it was 89 seconds, so the risk has increased.
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The annual time setting of the clock is based on analysis of present global threats. It is a symbolic, not predictive, tool.
In a press release ahead of Tuesday's announcement, the Bulletin said the decision reflects a “perilous period” of overlapping dangers, from geopolitical tensions to rapidly evolving technologies.
The group's Science and Security Board pointed to four major drivers – nuclear weapons risks, climate breakdown, biological threats and disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence (AI).
With the ongoing war in Ukraine, conflicts involving nuclear-armed states and the looming expiry of critical arms control agreements such as the US-Russia New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the risk of intentional or accidental nuclear conflict is evident.
Climate change accelerates
Scientists continue to warn that global warming is pushing ecosystems to breaking points, with hotter heatwaves, deeper droughts and record carbon emissions, while international commitments to reduce fossil fuel dependence lag.
Once a fringe concern, the AI has become central to the clock's warning. Experts now describe an ongoing “information Armageddon”, where AI-generated disinformation and autonomous systems could amplify conflict and undermine social cohesion at unprecedented scales.
The Bulletin highlighted rising concerns about misuse of biological research, including bioengineering and synthetic pathogens that could lead to pandemics beyond humanity's current defenses.
The Doomsday Clock was first unveiled in 1947 by scientists behind the Manhattan Project who had witnessed the destructive force of atomic weapons and wanted a vivid, public warning about existential threats.
Initially reset based mainly on nuclear risk, the clock's scope has widened to include climate change, information warfare and emerging technologies.
Over nearly 80 years, the clock has been reset more than 20 times, from 17 minutes to midnight in 1991, a hopeful moment after the Cold War, to today's record-close 85 seconds.
Detractors sometimes dismiss the clock as alarmist or insufficiently scientific, arguing that countdown seconds do not predict real events. This year's setting has reignited those debates, with critics pointing out that critical risks like climate change and geopolitical tensions are being measured metaphorically rather than quantitatively.
But the Bulletin insists that is the point – the clock is a wake-up signal designed to jolt publics and policymakers out of complacency before irreversible calamity. In their press release, scientists stressed that while the world is perilously close to disaster, the clock is not a prediction, it is a challenge to global leaders to reverse course before it is too late.
Experts and Nobel laureates who advise the Bulletin argue that humanity is at a geopolitical, environmental and technological crossroads. Nobel Peace Prize recipient Maria Ressa described the present era as an “information Armageddon” driven by unregulated AI and social media that undermine democratic institutions and fuel division.
Meanwhile, diplomats and analysts warn that without arms control treaties, multilateral climate agreements and stringent global AI governance frameworks, the world is effectively “sleepwalking into catastrophe”.
The clock's march toward midnight may be symbolic, but its implications are real. Nuclear arsenals still exist, greenhouse gas levels is dangerously high and emerging technologies can escape ethical and legal safeguards. Each demands urgent and collective action.
Scientists emphasise that the clock can move backward, and has done so in the past, if humanity tackles these existential challenges head-on through diplomacy, arms reduction, climate mitigation and responsible innovation.
For now, the clock has stopped moving. But the Bulletin's message is loud and clear: “We are closer than ever to disaster, and every second counts.”
Source: ZeeNews
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