Doomsday Clock: 85 Seconds To Midnight
A dire warning for the future of humanity has been issued by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, with the Doomsday Clock reset to 85 seconds to midnight.
The Doomsday Clock represents how close humanity is to total annihilation, and it now stands closer than ever to midnight, pushed forward four seconds from 2025.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded by Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer and initially set the clock to seven minutes to midnight in 1947 at the onset of the Cold War.
The new time was decided by the Bulletin in consultation with a board featuring eight Nobel laureates, including Filipina investigative journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressi.
The board cited rising concerns about nuclear weapons, climate change, and an imminent ‘information Armageddon’ as key factors in the time shift. The Bulletin also singled out China, Russia, and the US for not heeding previous warnings about an encroaching human-made catastrophe.
“A year ago, we warned that the world was perilously close to global disaster and that any delay in reversing course increased the probability of catastrophe,” the Bulletin said in a statement.
“Rather than heed this warning, Russia, China, the United States, and other major countries have instead become increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic.”
Humanity teeters on a precipice, edging inexorably towards destruction of our own design.
The Doomsday Clock was first set below the two minute mark in 2020 and has been pushed further towards midnight over the past five years.
The Bulletin believes humanity is fast approaching a point of no return with the prospect of a runaway nuclear arms race. In 2025, conflicts involving nuclear-capable militaries increased, and the last remaining treaty governing nuclear weapon stockpiles between the US and Russia will expire in early February.
The US and Russia possess nearly 90% of the world’s nuclear arsenal, just over 12,000 warheads split relatively evenly between the two superpowers. Resumption of nuclear testing by the US has reignited Cold War fears about Mutually Assured Destruction in the event of an atomic war.
A single nuclear weapon would kill millions of people and have lasting effects on the environment, as demonstrated in the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The detonation of hundreds or thousands of them would disrupt the global climate, causing a nuclear winter and widespread famine in which billions of people would die.
The Return of Brinksmanship
China, which holds the third-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, persists in flexing its military might with continued incursions into the South China Sea and the Pacific region. China has been accused of ignoring international law by running so-called military exercises in close proximity to sovereign waters. The CCP government has made no secret of its intentions to strengthen and expand Chinese global influence.
Meanwhile, US President Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown and the ensuing social disorder it’s caused, including the shooting of two citizens by federal agents, has raised alarms about government accountability and the use of extreme force by authorities. The US sanctioned kidnapping of Venezuela dictator Nicolas Maduro signalled a comeback for the iron-fisted approach reminiscent of Cold War political strategy.
Then there’s the whole Greenland debacle, which has upset the established international order. Greenland is a vital strategic point in the Arctic Circle and home to a vast wealth of natural resources. President Trump’s threats to annex the world’s largest island have shaken up the NATO alliance and redefined international diplomacy.
Cargill Australia – Nourishing the world
An Information Armageddon
Among the Bulletin’s concerns was the increasing use of AI, especially as a propaganda tool. There have been countless examples of AI being abused to create a false narrative and it is becoming more difficult to discern fact from fiction.
The lines of reality have become blurred. Within this climate of mistrust, information can be easily manipulated, which poses a major threat to journalism and freedom of the press. Information has been weaponised and emotions have overtaken rationale in public discourse.
“Without facts, you can’t have truth; without truth, you can’t have trust,” Ms Ressa said in a 2025 interview. Trust in media is declining and there has been a sharp uptake in conspiratorial thinking as people turn from mainstream to ‘alternative’ news sources via social media platforms that are tightly owned and controlled by a very small, extremely rich subset of the populace. In many ways, these people have become indistinct from those running the governments and militaries.
The Doomsday Clock represents how close humanity is to a man-made catastrophe, and the Bulletin says the hands can be turned back if leaders and nations address existential risks.
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