Doomsday Clock 2026: Scientists set new time

At the dawn of the nuclear age, scientists created the Doomsday Clock to symbolically represent how close humanity came to destroying the world. On Tuesday, nearly eight decades later, the clock was set to 85 seconds to midnight – the closest time to midnight, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which established the clock in 1947.

Midnight represents the moment when men will have made the Earth uninhabitable.

Last year, the Bulletin set the clock to 89 seconds to midnight, which was, at that time, the closest the world had ever been to that time. After setting the clock to 90 seconds past midnight in 2023 and 2024, scientists made the change to 2025 due to insufficient progress in combating or regulating global challenges, including nuclear risk, the climate crisis, biological threats, and advances in “disruptive technologies” such as artificial intelligence. Bulletin scientists also cited the spread of misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories as other existential threats to humanity.

“Humanity has not made enough progress in the face of the existential risks that put us all at risk,” said Alexandra Bell, president and CEO of the Bulletin, of the reasons behind this year’s change. “The Doomsday Clock is a tool to communicate how close we are to destroying the world with technologies of our own making. The risks we face from nuclear weapons, climate change and disruptive technologies are all growing. Every second counts and we are running out of time.

“It’s a harsh truth, but it’s our reality,” Bell said.

Last year, Bulletin scientists warned that countries needed to change course toward international cooperation and action on the most critical existential risks, Dr. Daniel Holz, chairman of the Bulletin’s science and security council, said at a press briefing Tuesday.

“Rather than heed this warning, major countries have become even more aggressive, confrontational and nationalistic,” added Holz, also a professor in the Department of Physics, Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. “Conflicts have intensified in 2025 with multiple military operations involving nuclear-armed states. The last treaty governing nuclear weapons stockpiles between the United States and Russia will soon expire on February 4. For the first time in more than half a century, nothing will prevent an uncontrolled nuclear arms race.”

Furthermore, “serious dangers persist in the life sciences, particularly in emerging areas such as the development of synthetic mirror life, despite repeated warnings from scientists around the world,” Holz added. “The international community lacks a coordinated plan and the world remains unprepared for potentially devastating biological threats. »

The rapid growth and use of AI tools, coupled with the lack of regulation, reinforces misinformation and greatly impacts efforts to address all of these threats and exacerbates all other impending disasters, Holz said.

What is the Doomsday Clock?

A group of scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, the code name for the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, established the nonprofit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1945.

The organization’s original goal was to measure nuclear threats, but in 2007 the Bulletin decided to also include the climate crisis in its calculations.

Every year for the past 79 years, Bulletin scientists have changed the clock time based on how close they believe the total annihilation of the human race is. Some years the weather changes, and some years it doesn’t. The time is set by experts on the Bulletin’s scientific and safety board, in consultation with its board of sponsors, formed by Albert Einstein in December 1948, with J. Robert Oppenheimer as its first chairman. The board currently includes eight Nobel laureates, many in physics or chemistry.

Is the Doomsday Clock real?

The clock is not designed to definitively measure existential threats, but rather to spark conversations about difficult scientific topics and the crises facing the planet, according to the Bulletin. Some experts who were not involved in naming the clock have questioned its usefulness.

“It’s an imperfect metaphor,” Dr. Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, told CNN in 2022, noting that clock ticking combines various types of risks that have different characteristics and occur on different time scales. He nevertheless added that it “remains an important rhetorical tool which reminds us, year after year, of the precariousness of our current existence on this planet”.

The Bulletin has made thoughtful decisions each year about how to focus people’s attention on existential threats and required actions, Eryn MacDonald, senior analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists’ global security program, told CNN in 2022. “While I wish we could go back to talking about minutes to midnight instead of seconds, unfortunately that no longer reflects reality.” »

At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2021, then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson cited the Doomsday Clock when speaking about the climate crisis facing the world.

What happens when the clock strikes midnight?

The Doomsday Clock never reached midnight, and former Bulletin President and CEO Rachel Bronson, who now serves as senior advisor, said she hopes it never happens.

“When it’s midnight, that means there was some sort of nuclear exchange or catastrophic climate change that wiped out humanity,” she said. “We never really want to get there, and we won’t know when we do.”

What can we do to turn back time?

Turning back the Doomsday Clock through bold and substantial action is still possible. In fact, the needle moved furthest away from midnight – 17 minutes per hour – in 1991, when the administration of President George HW Bush signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the Soviet Union.

“At the Bulletin, we believe that because humans created these threats, we can reduce them,” Bronson said. “But it is not easy, nor has it ever been. And it requires serious work and global commitment at all levels of society.”

When it comes to what individuals can do, don’t underestimate the power of discussing these important issues with your peers, the Bulletin scientists said. Sparking conversations can help combat misinformation, and public engagement can spur leaders to action.

“Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust,” Maria Ressa, co-founder and CEO of Rappler, a Philippine media outlet, said at the Bulletin press conference. “Without these three elements, we have no shared reality. We cannot have journalism. We cannot have democracy. The radical collaboration that the moment demands becomes impossible. Think of shared facts as the operating system for collective action.”

Other personal actions can also make a difference. To potentially help alleviate the climate crisis, ask yourself, for example, if you can make small changes in your daily life, such as how often you walk or drive and how you heat your home.

Eating seasonally and locally, reducing food waste, conserving water, reducing plastic use and recycling correctly are other ways to help mitigate or address the effects of the climate crisis.

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