TL:DR – Doomsday Clock Advances Four Seconds Near Midnight: Latest Armageddon Update
- The Doomsday Clock is now set at 85 seconds to midnight, indicating imminent existential risks.
- This change reflects concerns over nuclear threats and climate change.
- The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists highlights insufficient action by global leaders.
- New technologies, including unregulated AI, pose additional dangers.
- Climate issues exacerbated natural disasters, with experts predicting a potential 3°C rise in global temperatures.
- The situation underscores the urgent need for immediate, substantial environmental and geopolitical actions.
Doomsday Clock moves four seconds closer to midnight in latest Armageddon prediction | News World
Humanity is the closest it’s ever been to the end of the world – 85 seconds, to be exact.
Scientists pushed the hands of the Doomsday Clock, which predicts how close humanity is to extinction, by four seconds today.
If this metaphorical timepiece strikes midnight, it means humankind has failed to prevent Armageddon – think nuclear war or climate change.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists revealed how close we are to the stroke of doom at a 3pm announcement from Washington DC.
The bulletin’s CEO, Alexandra Bell, said that humanity has not done enough to prevent making the Earth uninhabitable.
‘Every second counts and we are running out of time. It’s a hard truth, but this is our reality,’ she added.
Scientists said world leaders are ‘running out of time’ to act (Picture: AP)
The clock hands have been moved once again (Picture: AP)
‘Overall, 2025 has been a pretty bleak picture in terms of advancing existential risks,’ Bell added.
Board member John Wolfsthal said that while deciding how far to move the clock is almost always tricky, they had ‘no such challenges this year’.
The clock has been ticking ever closer to midnight in recent years, from 90 seconds to midnight for 2023 to 89 seconds to midnight last year.
This is a far cry from when it was farthest from midnight in 1991 – 17 minutes – after the US and the Soviet Union agreed to reduce their nuclear stockpiles.
A lot, however, has changed in the 35 years since.
Why has the Doomsday Clock changed?
One of the main reasons for bringing the second hand forward is the fear that World War Three could break out.
The bulletin has said time and time again that a single ‘rash decision’ or accident could make the years-long war a nuclear one.
Yet despite these stark warnings, ‘aggressive’ countries have embraced nuclear weaponry and war.
Only last Saturday did Iran warn that an attack from Washington would lead to an ‘all-out war’ over the Islamic Republic’s protest crackdown.
Thousands of Iranians have been killed in the anti-protest crackdown (Picture: AFP)
How close have we come to the end of the world?
Year: Minute to midnight
2026: 1.25
2025: 1.29
2023: 1.5
2020: 1.67
2018: Two
2017: 2.5
2015: Three
2012: Five
2010: Six
2007: Five
2002: Seven
1998: Nine
1995: 14
1991: 17
1990: 10
1988: Six
1984: Three
1981: Four
1980: Seven
1974: Nine
1972: 12
1969: 10
1968: Seven
1963: 12
1960: Seven
1953: Two
1949: Three
1947: Seven
Donald Trump, meanwhile, has been sparking fears that NATO – an alliance of Western nations – could be torn apart by his quest to seize Greenland.
The icy, rocky island home to only 55,000 people is a Danish territory, yet the White House says it wants to annex it ‘whether they like it or not’.
Last year also saw the continuation of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza following the deaths of 1,100 Israelis on October 7, 2023.
Since the start of Israel’s counter-offensive, at least 71,000 Palestinians have been killed and some 171,000 injured, mostly women and children.
While a fragile ceasefire paused the conflict in October, Russia’s war against Ukraine shows no signs of ending anytime soon.
Donald Trump’s second presidency has seen repeated fears of a third world war breaking out (Picture: AFP)
Israel killed tens of thousands of Palestinians since the bloody October 7 attacks (Picture: AFP)
The Russia-Ukraine war is now in its fourth year (Picture: AFP)
New tech like unregulated AI tools ‘pose a threat to the survival of humanity,’ bulletin board member Steve Fetter said.
Fetter expressed fears about how generative AI can churn out fake images and videos, something Trump has done multiple times now.
‘Using such videos can try to persuade people that things have happened that have not happened, that there are perhaps riots in a location or acts of war that are fake,’ he added.
A war that will unfold in space is becoming more and more likely.
The symbolic instrument has been telling the public when the end of the world will happen since 1947 (Picture: TNS)
Humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels has continued to upend the world, the bulletin added.
Climate change worsened, among other things, last January’s deadly wildfires in California, the summer’s deadly heatwaves in Europe, and the powerful hurricane that devastated Jamaica in October.
Climate expert and forecaster Jim NR Dale told WTX News that the world becoming 3°C warmer, compared with preindustrial levels, is ‘inevitable’ within the next few decades.
‘This point in itself is Armageddon,’ Dale said, ‘but if we move by 4°C, then that really is the end.
‘Hence, an incredibly loud tick-tock.’
Biological threats, such as the coronavirus and bird flu, and the responses to them by officials, have also been cited by the bulletin as factors.