Doomsday Clock now closer than ever to midnight
The clock is ticking on humanity.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved its Doomsday Clock forward for 2025, announcing that it is now set to 89 seconds to midnight –— the closest it’s ever been to catastrophe.
The terrifying news was revealed Tuesday morning in Washington, DC after deliberation by the organization’s Security Board and Board of Sponsors, which includes nine Nobel Laureates.
Last year, the clock was set at 90 seconds to midnight.
“Because the world is already perilously close to the precipice, a move of even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster,” chair Daniel Holz declared.
For 2025, multiple global threats were considered when deciding the clock’s time, including the proliferation of nuclear weapons, disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Hamas war, the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, bio-threats, and the continued climate crisis.
Founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later as a metaphor for how close humanity is to destroying itself.
In 1947, the Doomsday Clock was set at 7 minutes to midnight.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has reset its 78-year-old Doomsday Clock. Getty Images
The clock functions as a call-to-action to find ways to resolve “the world’s most urgent, man-made existential threats” and move the hands further away from midnight.
When deciding the time, the board members are asked two questions: Is humanity safer or at greater risk this year compared to last year? And, is humanity safer or at greater risk compared to the more than 75 years the clock has been set?
The clock was created using the imagery of the apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero). Midnight is the time that represents Doomsday.
Factors such as nuclear risk, climate change, disruptive technologies and biosecurity are taken into account when determining the clock’s setting.
In a statement this year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists explained their reasons for moving the clock up by one second.
“In 2024, humanity edged ever closer to catastrophe,” they stated. “Trends that have deeply concerned the Science and Security Board continued, and despite unmistakable signs of danger, national leaders and their societies have failed to do what is needed to change course.”
Created in 1947, the Doomsday Clock is a metaphor for how close humanity is to destroying itself. SCOTT OLSONSCOTT OLSON/AFP/Getty Images
Disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence were taken into consideration for the Doomsday Clock. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
In 2020, the clock was set at 100 seconds to midnight.
