85 Seconds to Midnight

Doomsday Clock moved forward

The Doomsday Clock is a globally recognized symbol indicating how vulnerable our world is to a global catastrophe caused by technologies humans created. Set every year by the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, it uses midnight to represent a potential global apocalypse.

Today, the world is closer to disaster than at any point in its history, with the clock now standing at 85 seconds to midnight.

This position reflects a total breakdown in international cooperation and a dangerous rise in aggressive nationalism among world powers. The Bulletin warns that the current global trajectory is unsustainable, as leaders have grown complacent while adopting policies that accelerate rather than mitigate existential risks.

Why the Move from 89 to 85 Seconds?

The Science and Security Board moved the hands forward because of an intensification of several negative trends over the past year:

Aggressive Geopolitics: Russia, China, and the United States have moved away from diplomacy toward a winner-takes-all great power competition. At the same time, the sophistication of large language models is being used to supercharge disinformation campaigns, undermining the fact-based discussions necessary to address global crises.
Nuclear Brinkmanship: A full-blown arms race is currently underway as major powers modernize their delivery systems and increase their nuclear warhead counts. This is further aggravated by the development of the Golden Dome space-based missile defense system, which increases the probability of conflict in space. Three regional conflicts involving nuclear-armed states—the Russia-Ukraine war, tensions between India and Pakistan, and attacks involving Israel, the U.S., and Iran—all threatened to escalate in 2025. Additionally, there is a growing concern regarding the potential incorporation of AI into nuclear command and control decision-support systems.
Treaty Collapses: The expiration of New START marks the end of nearly 60 years of efforts to limit strategic nuclear weapons between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.
Climate Hostility: Atmospheric carbon dioxide has reached 150 percent of preindustrial levels, and global average sea levels have hit record highs. National responses have shifted from being merely insufficient to profoundly destructive, with recent UN summits failing to prioritize the phasing out of fossil fuels. The U.S. administration has effectively declared war on renewable energy and has halted the collection of vital climate data.
Biological Risks: The rapid evolution of AI is creating a new biological threat. These tools now allow for the AI-aided design of novel pathogens to which humans have no effective defenses. The potential laboratory synthesis of self-replicating organisms known as mirror life has emerged as a new existential threat to the planet’s ecosystems.

Today's setting of 85 seconds is the most dangerous point in the history of the Clock.

In 1953, the Clock was set at 2 minutes to midnight after the United States and the Soviet Union tested their first thermonuclear weapons. The safest period in the Clock’s history was in 1991, following the end of the Cold War, when it was moved back to 17 minutes to midnight as major powers made deep cuts to their nuclear arsenals.

Since 2023, the Clock has remained consistently at 90 seconds or less, reflecting a new abnormal that is extremely dangerous and unsustainable.

Read the full statement:

2026-doomsday-clock-statement

2026-doomsday-clock-statement.pdf

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Watch the full presentation:

A selection of Collapse2050 articles about fascism:

One more thing:

I recently did a Q&A with author Scott Erickson about his book "Laughing at Our Self Destruction". Previously, his book was only available on Amazon. Many readers expressed desire to buy his book without supporting Amazon. The book is now available on Bookshop.org.

Original interview: