What is the Doomsday clock? Why did it move closer to global catastrophe? What it means
Show Caption
Hide Caption
'Doomsday Clock' moves one second closer to midnight
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock one second closer to midnight, meaning humanity is closer to destroying itself.
The 2025 Doomsday Clock is ticking closer to midnight than ever before, signaling 'humanity edging closer to catastrophe' according to the Atomic Scientists.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced on Tuesday the clock now reads 89 seconds to midnight, one second closer than last year. It's the closest it has been since 1947, when the clock was introduced.
Scientists warned in their 2025 Doomsday Clock Statement, the new 2025 Clock time signals that "the world is on a course of unprecedented risk, and that continuing on the current path is a form of madness. The United States, China, and Russia have the prime responsibility to pull the world back from the brink. The world depends on immediate action."
Manpreet Sethi, member of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and distinguished fellow at the Centre for Air Power Studies in New Delhi, said in the statement:'The risk of nuclear use continues to grow due to capabilities building up and treaties breaking down. Russia has suspended compliance with the New START treaty and withdrawn ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. China is rapidly increasing its nuclear arsenal. And, the US has abdicated its role as a voice of caution. It seems inclined to expand its nuclear arsenal and adopt a posture that reinforces the belief that 'limited' use of nuclear weapons can be managed. Such misplaced confidence could have us stumble into a nuclear war.'
Another member scientist and senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Herb Lin, said AI has the potential to accelerate "chaos and disorder." He expressed concerns over integrating artificial intelligence into weapons of war, raising questions about the "extent to which machines will be allowed to make or support military decisions—even when such decisions could kill on a vast scale."
Here's what to know about the Doomsday Clock and what it means.
What is the Doomsday Clock?
The Doomsday Clock is a metaphor or symbol representing how close humanity is to self-destruction via a human-made global catastrophe according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer and University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the first nuclear weapons for the Manhattan Project. The group started the Doomsday Clock two years later.
The Clock's original setting in 1947 was seven minutes to midnight. It has since been set backward eight times and forward 18 times. The farthest time from midnight was 17 minutes in 1991, and the nearest is 89 seconds, set in January 2025.
The clock is not actual time, but a hypothetical time that takes into account threats such as climate change, the danger of nuclear weapon disasters, instability in the Middle East, the threat of pandemics, artificial intelligence and mis- and disinformation.
This year's member scientists also expressed concerns over climate change, noting in their statement that '2024 was the hottest year on record. Extreme weather and other climate events—floods, tropical cyclones, extreme heat, drought, and wildfires— devastated societies, rich and poor, as well as ecosystems around the world. Yet the global greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change continued to rise."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
6 days ago
- New York Post
The world started with a ‘bang' but will end in a scary ‘big crunch' — and scientists think they know when that will be
Our humble blue planet came into being with the Big Bang — the sudden expansion of the universe outwards. Now, according to astrophysicists and cosmologists, Earth and all of its celestial siblings will likely be swallowed back into the super-small singularity they came from, in what is known as the 'big crunch' theory. Alarming as it sounds, physicists say there's no reason to fret just yet. Advertisement 4 In recent years, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has repeatedly predicted that humanity's doomsday is inching closer and closer, echoing the sentiment that humanity likely won't be around to see the big crunch. Hero Design – According to leading experts on the matter, the big crunch theory supposes that the universe will eventually stop expanding and everything will be pulled back together. Cosmologists at Cornell University predict that the big crunch is billions of years away —19.5 to be exact. Advertisement Henry Tye, a lead researcher at the institution, suggested that the big crunch will begin in 11 billion years, and will take another 8.5 billion years to conclude. 4 'Civilizations like us typically exist on time scales of hundreds to thousands of years while the changes happen on billion–year time scales, so we wouldn't notice any obvious day–to–day phenomenon until the very last moment,' added Luu. IgorZh – Supposing humanity is still around billions of years from now, scientists say it's unlikely we would notice any distinct changes while the big crunch takes place. Advertisement 'Intelligent civilizations at the scales of solar systems or even galactic scales would not notice any obvious phenomenon because these changes happen at much larger cosmological scales,' Dr Hoang Nhan Luu, a researcher at the Donostia International Physics Center, explained to the Daily Mail. However, one of the warning signs would be a rising cosmic temperature. In a few billion years, it's probable that the universe, including all of its major celestial bodies, will be the same temperature as the surface of the sun. 'Needless to say, all humans will burn up in the furnace of this cosmic hell,' Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist at Harvard University, told the Daily Mail. Advertisement 4 Scientists suspect our universe's lifespan is around 33.3 billion years. sdecoret – The theory has been swirling among academic circles for decades, but fell out of favor among some camps of researchers several decades back. However, after dark energy — a repellent force that pushes things in the universe apart — was discovered in the '90s and research has progressed, it seems more and more experts are reevaluating their stances. Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki, an astrophysicist at the University of Texas at Dallas, told Discover Magazine that dark matter research has revealed that the universe isn't slowing down, but rather, its expansion is accelerating less, and eventually, it will come to a slow halt. 'To survive, human beings have to move to the edge of our solar system or beyond. We have a few billion years' time to prepare for that trip,' Tye explained to the Daily Mail. 4 Dark energy is essentially the opposite of gravity, which pushes things together. Claudio Caridi – Advertisement The big crunch theory spells trouble for humanity in several ways, but it's far from the first scary-sounding phenomenon that our planet has undergone. Earth's magnetic poles reversed 780,000 years ago. Researchers at the Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences in Germany created a soundscape of the geological gymnastics routine, which they dubbed a 'disharmonic cacophony.'
USA Today
20-07-2025
- USA Today
'Heed our warnings': Nobel laureates plea for diplomacy to prevent nuclear war
Top nuclear experts gathered in Chicago to offer world leaders a playbook for reducing the risk of nuclear war. CHICAGO − In the fall of 2022, U.S. spies said the chances of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine were 50% − a coin flip. Nearly three years later, the risk of nuclear war has only increased, top experts say. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' famed "Doomsday Clock" is the closest it has ever been to midnight. Humanity is 'heading in the wrong direction' on the one threat that 'could end civilization in an afternoon,' warned an assembly of Nobel laureates, nuclear experts, and diplomats gathered at the University of Chicago to mark the 80th anniversary of the planet's first nuclear explosion in 1945 when the U.S. conducted the Trinity test in New Mexico. Although Russia didn't nuke its neighbor, the brutal war of attrition continues in Ukraine. Two nuclear-armed countries, India and Pakistan, attacked each other in May. The U.S. and Israel, which both have nuclear weapons, bombed Iran in June to destroy its nuclear program. Popular support for building nuclear weapons grows in countries like Japan and South Korea. Against this backdrop, more than a dozen Nobel Prize winners and numerous nuclear experts signed a 'Declaration for the Prevention of Nuclear War' on July 16 with recommendations for world leaders to reduce the increasing risk of nuclear conflict. More: 80 years later, victims of 'first atom bomb' will soon be eligible for reparations 'Despite having avoided nuclear catastrophes in the past, time and the law of probability are not on our side,' the declaration says. 'Without clear and sustained efforts from world leaders to prevent nuclear war, there can be no doubt that our luck will finally run out.' The declaration emerged from days of discussion and debate, said assembly leader David Gross, a University of California, Santa Barbara, physicist and 2004 Nobel Prize winner. 'We are calling on our leaders in the world to consider our suggestions and heed our warnings,' Gross said. Longtime Vatican diplomat and nuclear advisor Cardinal Silvano Maria Tomasi argued that faith leaders should embrace a role in providing world leaders with independent moral and ethical assessments of nuclear policy and technology. International agreements key to reducing risk The declaration and speakers at its unveiling spoke extensively of the crucial role diplomacy and treaties played in building trust between countries with nuclear weapons and shrinking their arsenals after the Cold War. Clock ticks on nuke treaties But a key treaty remains unenforced, and the last remaining arms control agreement between the U.S. and Russia expires in February 2026. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, or CTBT, is a 1996 international agreement that aims to ban explosive nuclear tests. Although the CTBT Organization, headquartered in Vienna, Austria, successfully detects even underground nuclear tests (and identifies when suspicious seismic events aren't test explosions), the treaty is not in force. Nine more countries, including the U.S. and Russia (which de-ratified the CTBT in 2023), must formally approve the treaty before it becomes binding international law. At the assembly, CTBTO leader and former Australian diplomat Robert Floyd joined the Nobel winners in calling the international community to formally approve the testing ban. Floyd argued that if countries with nuclear weapons resumed testing to build more destructive nukes, it could lead 'other states to develop nuclear weapons and … a renewed global nuclear arms race.' The declaration also highlighted the need for the U.S., Russia, and China to enter arms control discussions. The 2010 New START treaty, which limits American and Russian nuclear weapons deployments and enables the rivals to verify the other's cooperation, expires in February 2026. AI and the atom bomb Artificial intelligence and its role in nuclear weapons matters also weighed heavily. The declaration emphasized the 'unprecedented and serious risks posed by artificial intelligence' and implored 'all nuclear armed states to ensure meaningful and enhanced human control and oversight over nuclear command and control.' Tomasi, the Vatican's representative, said scientists, disarmament experts and faith leaders need to study 'the ethical implications of emerging technologies,' such as AI, on 'nuclear stability.' World leaders, including former President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, generally agree that humans − and not AI algorithms − should control nuclear launch buttons. But debate rages over the ideal, and safe, extent of integrating AI into other nuclear functions such as early warning, targeting, and communications. A February 2025 report from the Center for a New American Security think tank on AI nuclear risk warned that 'overreliance on untested, unreliable, or biased AI systems for decision support during a crisis' could potentially lead decision-makers down an escalatory path during a nuclear crisis. Ultimately, argued Nobel winner Gross, progress in reducing the risks of nuclear weapons hinges on popular pressure on world leaders. 'The main motivation for the advances in reducing the risk of Armageddon was the fear of many … people throughout the world who demanded (action) from their leaders,' Gross said. Davis Winkie's role covering nuclear threats and national security at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Outrider Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Forbes
17-07-2025
- Forbes
Midnight Approaches: Living The Character Our Values Demand
It's time to strengthen character to realize values as the Doomsday Clock approaches midnight Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney makes the case in his 2021 book 'Value(s): Building a Better World for All' that although markets have been constructed around economic value, they need to serve societal values. The opposite has been happening. In the book's introduction, Carney states, 'In short, we have moved from a market economy to a market society.' Market values have become society's values. Current market mechanisms embed a set of transactional and self-interested values that do not reflect the values societies want or need. Carney is not alone in calling for a systemic change from shareholder primacy to stakeholder capitalism, which goes beyond valuing profits to valuing not only current and future generations, but also communities and the planet. Alarm bells have been ringing for decades about the urgency of examining values and actions, most clearly illustrated by the Doomsday Clock, a symbolic timepiece created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to measure humanity's proximity to global catastrophe. As Forbes Senior Contributor Monica Sanders describes, the Doomsday Clock, with its ominous countdown to midnight, serves as a stark reminder of the urgent need to address a range of threats, including climate change, nuclear proliferation, biothreats, disinformation, and wars. Essentially, Carney's call for society to embrace eternal and universal values, such as fairness, responsibility, and humility, is deemed to be at the root of how we engage with the world through decisions and actions that shape it. Every action we take moves us closer or further away from midnight. The end of the Cold War in 1991 marked a significant turning point in global stability. It followed a deeply tense period in 1953, when the testing of hydrogen bombs pushed the Doomsday Clock to just two minutes before midnight. In contrast, 1991 saw a dramatic retreat from that danger, with the Clock set back to 17 minutes before midnight—the furthest it's ever been. Since then, however, the threat has steadily intensified, and as of January 2025, the Clock stands at a mere 89 seconds until midnight. A clarion call to adopt a different set of values has been issued, but it is not being heeded. It's time to look beyond values to character. There are four reasons why we need to live up to the character that aspirational values demand. 1. Systems Trump Values Many of the systems within which we operate are misaligned, if not broken. James Clear's insight about goals and systems also applies to values and systems: 'We do not rise to the level of our goals. Instead, we fall to the level of our systems.' It is increasingly clear that a society relying on systems rooted in market values is unsustainable. These systems promote short-term, money- and power-focused thinking, ignoring non-monetary values, which dehumanizes us and fosters a 'might is more powerful than right' mindset. Such systems shape values. Whether among individuals, organizations, or society as a whole, evidence shows that systems influence not only values but also behaviors. The well-known Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments serve as striking reminders of how good people can be influenced by flawed systems, leading to compromised decisions and actions. Good intentions are not enough. Icek Ajzen's 1991 Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) aimed to explain the gap between intentions and actual behaviors that lead to poor and unintended outcomes. He identified three key factors that influence the intention-behavior gap: 1) belief that the action will produce positive results; 2) whether the action aligns with norms; and 3) whether we believe we can do it. Although TPB has been applied to various behaviors, including health, environmental, consumer, and organizational habits, the insights remain consistent for personal values. Simply put, the systems within which we operate do not reinforce (or worse, undermine) our intended values; the norms embedded in the system prevail and erode both our belief and confidence in whether those values can be achieved. Systems can be seen as the norms and practices, whether in our lives, organizations, or society. Essentially, these systems embed approaches that are often difficult to alter or change. For example, at the individual level, people often prioritize attaining wealth and status—two core values in a market economy—causing them to neglect exercising or investing in close relationships, despite claiming to value health, family, and friends. Their ability to choose their lifestyle is influenced by market economy values rather than the more sustainable values of health and well-being. The same applies to how we behave within organizations, where individuals tend to respond to organizational norms reinforced through compensation and reward systems. Even though almost every organization has a statement of values, former Forbes Councils Member, Tom Silva, argued that 'Most Corporate Values Aren't Valuable,' mainly because they are mere platitudes. Silva was correct that words like fairness and integrity, which arise from a virtue ethics perspective, will not yield the intended benefits, given how they have been employed. However, his conclusion that organizations are better served by a deontological approach that looks at the intentions of the company is shortsighted. In referring to focusing on the duties of the organizations, he states: 'These are much more compelling because they employ not character traits but the intent and whether a company is fulfilling its duty to the world.' With this conclusion, he misses the power of a market value society that shapes values and what it takes to develop the strength of character to overcome these market values. 2. Character Underpins Values What was missing from Silva's argument is that developing character offers a cornerstone not only to support values, but to counter the forces that Ajzen identified in explaining why intentions are not realized. The reason that values such as integrity and fairness become platitudes is that there is a lack of understanding of the architecture of character that underpins their manifestation. In the same way that values can become platitudes, so too can character. My Forbes article, 'From Good to Great: 10 Ways to Elevate Your Character Quotient,' describes the foundations of character and provides a pulse check that individuals can use to assess their own and their organization's character development practices. The core ideas are that there is an architecture of character that can be understood as 11 interconnected character dimensions (transcendence, drive, collaboration, humanity, humility, integrity, temperance, justice, accountability, courage, and judgment), each with a set of virtuous behaviors that can be observed, assessed, and developed. An overlooked aspect of character is that any one of the behaviors can manifest in deficient or excess vice states. For example, the five behaviors associated with the character dimension of integrity—being authentic, candid, consistent, principled, and transparent—will manifest in the excess state as being uncompromising, belligerent, rigid, dogmatic, and indiscriminate. It is not that a person would want to reduce those strengths, but rather that they need strength in other dimensions, such as humility, humanity, and justice, to help ensure integrity manifests in the virtuous, not vice state. The deficient vice of integrity is being fake, untruthful, inconsistent, unprincipled, and manipulative. Weaknesses in these elements of integrity can be strengthened through regular practice – what we refer to as 'going to the character gym.' A key aspect of character is that it fosters human flourishing – sustained excellence and well-being, through judgment, or what Aristotle described as 'practical wisdom.' Unfortunately, people tend to overestimate their strength of character because they judge themselves by their intentions, while others judge them by their observable actions. Additionally, Tasha Eurich's research shows that 95% of us believe we are self-aware, but only 10% to 15% actually are. Therefore, when it comes to character, people are often unaware of their deficiencies and excesses. In our workshops, we encourage people to identify whether they lean toward character deficiency or excess. Even if someone does not see themselves as dogmatic (the excess vice of being principled), knowing their tendency toward excess can help them understand how others might perceive their principled behavior as dogmatic. The solution is not to become less principled but to strengthen the supporting character muscles. For example, developing behaviors such as being open-minded and flexible (elements of collaboration), and being curious and a continuous learner (part of humility), helps ensure that others see principled behavior manifesting as intended in the virtuous state. 3. Beyond Platitudes to Strengthening Character Living true to one's aspirational values is like telling someone to run a marathon without training. While character underpins how values are expressed, descriptions of character will remain empty words if people don't understand what it is, how it can manifest in deficiency and excess, and how to develop it. Similarly, there is no shortcut to physical exercise; there's no shortcut to developing character, just like going to the character gym. In 'Developing Leadership Character,' Gerard Seijts, Jeffrey Gandz, and I describe the 11 dimensions of character. In 'The Character Compass,' Gerard Seijts, Bill Furlong, and I outline how to grow and embed character within organizations. In 'Cracking the Code: Leader Character Development For Competitive Advantage,' Corey Crossan, Bill Furlong, and I chart a path for individuals and organizations. Over the past 17 years, as I have worked to elevate character alongside competence in higher education and organizations, I have observed that people quickly realize they have blind spots regarding character, and consider it a revelation that what they thought was a strength could manifest as an excess vice. Unfortunately, too many people believe that being aware of the anatomy of character is sufficient. The faulty logic is clear. In the same way, you can't get fit by just knowing anatomy; strengthening character without commitment to ongoing habit development is what would make character become a platitude and values unrealized. Research at the Ivey Business School reveals that the difference between weak and strong character is a 14% difference in leader effectiveness, a 10% difference in leader resilience, and differences in job-related well-being, job satisfaction, leader well-being, work engagement, and organizational commitment, all by 8%. In the face of such research, it is understandable, indeed an obligation, that individuals and organizations would not want to leave character development to chance. There are programs for character development, such as the Harvard/Oxford 'Leading with Character' 30-day online course, Ivey's Leader Character Practitioner Program, and the Virtuosity Character mobile app, which I co-created with Corey Crossan for daily character development. The major challenge, like any habit development, is to cultivate and sustain a character development practice. One of the reasons Corey and I created the Virtuosity app was to embed everything we know about what character is and how to develop it within the app, including ways to strengthen the intention to develop character based on TPB. Our data reveal that many individuals believe that developing character will lead to positive outcomes, and they believe they can develop character behaviors; however, they consistently report that many of these character behaviors are not customary norms, nor is there positive peer influence to support character development. Finally, many report that their lifestyle impedes their character development practices. Digging into what it takes to develop character reveals why it is so difficult and underscores why values are necessary but not sufficient to translate positive intention into action. 4. Character Can Shape Systems The famous saying by Mahatma Gandhi, 'Be the change you want to see in the world,' points in the right direction. First, we need to 'become the change' through character development. Lofty values will be insufficient to shift systems without the strength of character that provides the foundation to realize those lofty values. Recognizing the significant influence of systems that can undermine character, it reinforces the strength of character needed to shape these systems. Many systems, including market value systems, have embedded within them imbalances of character, such as weaknesses in justice, accountability, humility and humanity. It is people who sustain those systems, and often those who have character imbalances. When we elect, select, or promote people with character imbalances, we perpetuate dysfunctional systems. Understanding, developing, and embedding character in our lives and organizations is the only avenue we have to limit the role of market values in our society and allow the other, sustainable, long-term, and human values to guide our collective destiny.
