The Doomsday Clock Is Now 85 Seconds to Midnight. Here’s What That Means

The Doomsday Clock has been set to 85 seconds to midnight, marking the closest it has ever been to symbolic global catastrophe in nearly 80 years. This update, announced by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board (SABS), reflects escalating threats from nuclear weapons, disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, biosecurity risks, and the ongoing climate crisis. The clock, created in 1947 during the Cold War, serves as a metaphor for how close humanity is to self-destruction, with midnight representing an uninhabitable Earth. The recent move closer to midnight follows insufficient global progress in addressing these existential dangers, compounded by rising nationalism and autocratic tendencies that undermine international cooperation. The SABS report emphasizes a critical lack of leadership and global collaboration, noting that deteriorating diplomatic relations and competitive power struggles among major nations such as the United States, Russia, and China exacerbate risks related to nuclear war, climate change, biotechnology misuse, and AI threats. Despite this grim