'Doomsday Clock' moves to 85 seconds to midnight as global tensions rise
(L-R) Herbert Lin, Juan Manuel Santos, Robert Socolow, and Suzet McKinney reveal the 2025 Doomsday Clock time held by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the United States Institute of Peace on January 28, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kayla
WASHINGTON - Earth is closer to destruction than ever before, as Russia, China, the United States, and other nations grow increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic, prompting a science advocacy group on Tuesday to move its Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds before midnight.
Dig deeper:
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists cited risks of nuclear war, climate change, potential misuse of biotechnology and the increasing use of artificial intelligence without adequate controls as it made the annual announcement, which rates how close humanity is from ending.
Last year, the clock advanced to 89 seconds to midnight.
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Since then, "hard-won global understandings are collapsing, accelerating a winner-takes-all great power competition and undermining the international cooperation" needed to reduce existential risks, the group said.
Why you should care:
They worry about the threat of escalating conflicts involving nuclear-armed countries, citing the Russia-Ukraine war, May's conflict between India and Pakistan and whether Iran is capable of developing nuclear weapons after strikes last summer by the U.S. and Israel.
US deploys nuclear warship to middl east
The United States has deployed one of its most powerful warships to the Middle East amid escalating tensions with Iran following the reported killing of protesters, according to the Pentagon. Satellite data from Copernicus shows that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and its strike group have moved westward from the Indo-Pacific region. The group includes fighter jets, guided-missile destroyers, and an attack submarine.
Big picture view:
International trust and cooperation is essential because, "if the world splinters into an us-versus-them, zero-sum approach, it increases the likelihood that we all lose," said Daniel Holz, chair of the group’s science and security board.
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The group also highlighted droughts, heat waves and floods linked to global warming, as well as the failure of nations to adopt meaningful agreements to fight global warming — singling out U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to boost fossil fuels and hobble renewable energy production.
What is the Doomsday Clock?
The backstory:
Starting in 1947, the advocacy group used a clock to symbolize the potential and even likelihood of people doing something to end humanity. At the end of the Cold War, it was as close as 17 minutes to midnight. In the past few years, to address rapid global changes, the group has changed from counting down the minutes until midnight to counting down the seconds.
What's next:
The group said the clock could be turned back if leaders and nations worked together to address existential risks.
The Source: The Associated Press contributed to this report. The information in this story comes from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. This story was reported from Los Angeles.