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At 89 Seconds to Midnight, Doomsday Clock Now 'Closest It Has Ever Been to Catastrophe'
China, Russia, and the United States "have the collective power to destroy civilization," so they also "have the prime responsibility to pull the world back from the brink," according to The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Jan 28, 2025
Highlighting the threat posed by nuclear weapons, the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, the potential misuse of biological science, and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Tuesday moved the Doomsday Clock "from 90 seconds to 89 seconds to midnight—the closest it has ever been to catastrophe."
The Bulletin was founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and University of Chicago scientists involved with the Manhattan Project. The clock was launched two years later, as a symbol of how close the world is to apocalypse due to nuclear arms. The Science and Security Board now considers various threats with its annual updates.
"The purpose of the Doomsday Clock is to start a global conversation about the very real existential threats that keep the world's top scientists awake at night," explained Daniel Holz, a University of Chicago professor who chairs the board. "National leaders must commence discussions about these global risks before it's too late. Reflecting on these life-and-death issues and starting a dialogue are the first steps to turning back the clock and moving away from midnight."
The clock announcement came just over a week after the return of Republican U.S. President Donald Trump, whose country has a sizable nuclear arsenal.
"Blindly continuing on the current path is a form of madness."
"Long-standing concerns about nuclear weapons—involving the modernization and expansion of arsenals in all nuclear weapons
countries, the build-up of new capabilities, the risks of inadvertent or deliberate nuclear use, the loss of arms control agreements, and the possibility of nuclear proliferation to new countries—continued or were amplified in 2024,"
notesThe Bulletin's statement on the clock. "The outgoing Biden administration showed little willingness or capacity to pursue new efforts in these areas, and it remains to be seen whether the Trump administration will seize the initiative."
The other eight nations with nuclear weapons are China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, North Korea, Russia, and the United Kingdom. The statement points out that "against the backdrop of Russia's continuing war against Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended compliance with the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), and Russia's Duma voted to withdraw Moscow's ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty."
While the United States and Russia have the most nukes, "China's nuclear arsenal has grown to about 600 warheads, and China may also now be deploying a small number of warheads on missiles during peacetime," the statement says. Additionally, "Iran continues to increase its stockpile of enriched uranium" and "Kim Jong Un recently declared his goal was to 'exponentially expand' North Korea's nuclear arsenal in coming years."
Along with detailing "extremely dangerous trends" on the nuclear front, the statement spotlights "devastating impacts and insufficient progress" in terms of climate. As board member and Princeton University professor emeritus Robert Socolow summarized Tuesday: "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. And investments to adapt to climate change and cut fossil fuel emissions were way below what is needed to avoid the worst impacts," he added. "There were formidable policy headwinds globally: Particularly worrisome, electoral campaigns showed climate change to be a low priority in the United States and many other countries."
The board's statement also lays out "daunting biological threats," including emerging and reemerging infectious diseases, proliferation of high-containment laboratories, artificial intelligence involvement in research and development, and weapons programs.
Artificial intelligence also features prominently in the statement's section on "disruptive technologies," which warns that "increasing chaos, disorder, and dysfunction in the world's information ecosystem threaten society's capacity to address difficult challenges, and it is clear that AI has great potential to accelerate these processes of information corruption."
The tech section also states that "the growing presence of hypersonic weapons in contested regional theaters substantially increases the risk of escalation," and "there is a growing belligerence among the United States, Russia, and China in space."
Those three countries, the statement stresses, "have the collective power to destroy civilization," so they also "have the prime responsibility to pull the world back from the brink, and they can do so if their leaders seriously commence good-faith discussions about the global threats outlined here."
"Blindly continuing on the current path is a form of madness," the document declares. "It is 89 seconds to midnight."
The #DoomsdayClock moves to 89 seconds to midnight. Humanity stands closer to catastrophe than at any moment in its history. How did we get here and what must we do now? Chair of The Elders, Juan Manuel Santos, gives an urgent diagnosis. @thebulletin.org
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— The Elders ( @theelders.bsky.social) January 28, 2025 at 11:13 AM
In anticipation of the clock update, Dr. Robert Dodge from Physicians for Social Responsibility and nuclear activist Talia Wilcox
pointed to some recent progress in a Tuesday opinion piece for Common Dreams, writing that "there is great hope arising from the international community as the fourth anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons."
"The timing of this Doomsday Clock unveiling could not be more critical," the pair wrote, acknowledging Trump's expressions of "concern about the existential consequences of nuclear war throughout his public life" and urging him to seize "one last chance to make the ultimate deal for the future of humanity."
Meanwhile, in a Monday piece for Common Dreams, Danaka Katovich, CodePink's national co-director, argued that "doom isn't good enough to get us to where we need to go."
"At CodePink, we've created a Peace Clock to give us ways not to just move away from doom, but to bring us closer to the kind of world we want to see," she explained. "It's something that's been within our sight a thousand times. We have to sprint toward it."
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As the Doomsday Clock Ticks Closer to Midnight, Will Trump Make the Ultimate Deal?
All nuclear nations are following the U.S. lead in rebuilding their arsenals, giving President Trump, who has expressed concern over nuclear war, a chance to act if he will take it.
Jan 28, 2025
Eighty years ago saw the dawn of the nuclear age with the development and subsequent sole use of nuclear weapons when the United States dropped them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing roughly 200,000, mainly civilian Japanese citizens. These events and the subsequent nuclear arms race driven by the myth of nuclear deterrence have hung over civilization to this day, threatening our very existence.
On Tuesday, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists unveiled its prophetic “Doomsday Clock” moving the hand to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to midnight, representing the time at which our planet is uninhabitable and life as we know it is no longer possible. The Bulletin was originally founded in 1945 by the developers of the atomic bomb, including Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, and University of Chicago scientists to inform the public of man-made threats to human existence.
While nuclear weapons were the initial existential threat focus of the Doomsday Clock, risk multipliers are now included. These include the climate crisis, which reduces access to natural resources fueling conflict. Bio threats, like COVID-19 and future pandemics, are increasing as mankind and the animal kingdom interface ever more closely. In addition, the threats of bioterrorism, disinformation, and disruptive technologies—including AI—have made the risk even greater.
An important element to realizing this call to protect our world is the need to build the political will and give cover to members of Congress, many of whom who have been captured by the nuclear and military industrial complex.
Even at this time of great challenge, there is great hope arising from the international community as the fourth anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was celebrated last week. Under this treaty, nuclear weapons are illegal to stockpile, develop, test, transfer, use, or even threaten to use, and join all other weapons of mass destruction in that reality. The treaty emanated from civil society; impacted communities, including Hibakusha and victims of nuclear weapons, testing, and development legacy; international organizations; and government and elected officials. Today, with 73 nations ratifying the treaty, half the world’s countries representing over 2.5 billion people are on board with this nuclear ban.
The international movement that brought forth this treaty is the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace prize. This movement currently has 652 international partner organizations. The aim of this movement is to stigmatize, prohibit, and eliminate nuclear weapons.
In the United States there is a parallel effort endorsing nuclear abolition and the precautionary safeguard measures to reduce the risk of nuclear war until these weapons are verifiably abolished. This movement is called “Back from the Brink.” Similar to the TPNW, this movement has been endorsed by 493 organizations, 77 municipalities and counties, eight state legislative bodies, 428 municipal and state officials, and 44 members of Congress. It calls on the United States to lead a global effort to prevent nuclear war by:
- Actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals;
- Renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first;
- Ending the sole, unchecked authority of any U.S. president to launch a nuclear attack;
- Taking U.S. Nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert; and
- Canceling the plan to replace the U.S. nuclear arsenal with enhanced weapons.
There is companion legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, H. Res. 77, calling on the United States to adopt Back from the Brink’s comprehensive policy prescriptions for preventing nuclear war. This legislation introduced by Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.) is expected to be reintroduced soon in the new Congress.
An important element to realizing this call to protect our world is the need to build the political will and give cover to members of Congress, many of whom who have been captured by the nuclear and military industrial complex, to endorse this legislation and to engage the next generation whose future is threatened by policies that they have had no say in. Across the nation over the past year a student movement called Students for Nuclear Disarmament (SND) has been taking shape in our high schools, colleges, and universities.
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Talia’s Story
I am currently a senior at Tufts University, graduating this June. As I reflect back on my choice of major, I recognize that I first knew I wanted to study international relations as a freshman in high school. I am an avid news reader and am fascinated by different countries’ decision-making processes. I considered myself well read and up to date on current events. It wasn’t until near the end of my freshman year of college that I had even heard of the nuclear threat.
After hearing one lecture on the growing threat of nuclear war, I changed my major to focus on understanding the history of nuclear weapons and advocating for disarmament through extracurricular activities. I joined SND last year, and, working with other student activists, renewed my passion for this work. Through webinars, emails, phone calls, and social media, we have engaged with students across America to build our movement.
It is clear that my generation does not associate the nuclear threat with problems we face today. SND is not only an organization that raises awareness, but also an organization that empowers young people to take action and show their congresspeople that we are not blind to this threat. Successful student activism inspires students on the precipice of action to take the next step. SND has made great strides in 2024, and, with growing chapters and more student leaders, SND is ready to push Congress to take action.
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The timing of this Doomsday Clock unveiling could not be more critical. U.S. President Donald Trump, who professes wanting to make America great again, has expressed his concern about the existential consequences of nuclear war throughout his public life. Campaigning last June he said, “Tomorrow, we could have a war that will be so devastating that you could never recover from it. Nobody can. The whole world won’t be able to recover from it.”
With Russian threats to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine and the Israeli-Gaza war, heightened tensions between Taiwan and China, and North Korean nuclear advances, the stakes could not be higher. All nuclear nations are following the U.S. lead in rebuilding their arsenals. The U.S. alone is estimated to spend $756 billion on nuclear weapons in the next 10 years.
Time and luck are not on our side. What is required is bold and new thinking about our nuclear realities. President Trump, the “great dealmaker,” is back in the White House with one last chance to make the ultimate deal for the future of humanity.
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Maybe Doom Isn’t Scary Enough
I interviewed three anti-nuke activists to understand the Doomsday Clock and how our society thinks about the very real threat of nuclear war.
Jan 27, 2025
“Dear young people who have never experienced war, ‘Wars begin covertly. If you sense it coming, it may be too late.’”—Takato Michishita, survivor of the bombing of Nagasaki.
On a rainy Saturday afternoon in the Catskill Mountains where New Yorkers went for the summer to escape the city heat, Alice Slater’s mother took her to go see a movie in town. It was late summer in 1945, and the second World War had just ended. Alice remembers parading around the Catskills town a few weeks earlier as everyone celebrated the end of the war. When I asked her when she first became aware of nuclear weapons, the first thing she thought to tell me was about her trip to the theater with her mom. Instead of trailers before the movies, they used to show news reels. The mushroom cloud over Hiroshima projected across the screen, and Alice asked her mom, “What is that?”
“That’s a wonderful new weapon, and now all the boys would come home,” her mom answered.
Between what they showed on the screen and what her mom had told her, at that moment Alice had no real idea what a nuclear bomb was, or what it did to the people it was used on. It was only a mushroom cloud, and the mushroom cloud meant the war was over.
The Doomsday Clock was created as a warning—a warning that the most powerful people in the world are playing God.
Seventeen years later, Alice was a young mom who had moved to the suburbs of New York City. Her husband was working for CBS, and one day he didn’t come home—he had to stay at work to deal with breaking news for a handful of days. The world had just found out that the Soviet Union, bringing us to the height of the Cold War between Washinton and Moscow, put nukes just 90 miles off the coast of the United States in Cuba. Alice, even with close proximity to someone who worked in the news, had no idea what was happening. Americans didn’t know the U.S. had nukes near the Russian border in Turkey, too. All they knew was that the communists were threatening them with nuclear bombs. We are far removed from the Cuban Missile Crisis now, but Alice said it was probably the most afraid she’s ever been. People really thought we were about to enter another war and send the entire world into a nuclear winter. Later people found out former U.S. President John F. Kennedy had negotiated to move U.S. nukes out of Turkey. But now they’re back, and scattered all over Europe.
Carol Gilbert, around the same week Alice’s husband didn’t come home from CBS, was at her aunt’s house in Michigan. She was around 15 years old at the time, and she remembered that it must have been during the school year—it was special that she got to go stay there that day, she loved spending time with her cousin. “I remember my mom calling my aunt and saying she was going to come pick us up because they were worried about the bomb,” Carole continued, “At some point I think we knew something bad was happening, but I don’t think I fully understood what was going on.”
On the other side of Lake Michigan from Carol, Kathy Kelly was in her home in Garfield Ridge, Chicago when her mother started putting stuff down in the basement on the day the news broke. Kathy’s parents lived in London during World War II, and tried every way they could to keep her sheltered from the trauma of war, but in the face of nuclear war—what are parents to do?
All three women recall the Cuban Missile Crisis as a time of uncertainty. Where people were freaked out and didn’t know what to do. Alice was afraid for her kids, and Carol’s and Kathy’s moms were clearly afraid for their children too. Then the missiles were taken out of Cuba, and the panic disappeared.
I chose Alice, Kathy, and Carol to interview on this topic because they are anti-war activists I deeply admire. I figured the concern over nuclear weapons amongst my peers may be less than that of older generations because of things like the Cuban Missile Crisis, or even becoming conscious in the years right after the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the more elders I talked to, the more I realized how little it may have impacted their trajectory as activists. Alice didn’t become an anti-nuke activist after the missile crisis, and neither Carol nor Kathy mentioned it as a moment they remembered in the awakening of their conscience. Kathy was radicalized on the issue of nukes by the women who worked at the bookshop in downtown Chicago that she would stop into on her way to work as a teenager. Alice was pulled into the movement by the war in Vietnam.
On January 28, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which created the Doomsday Clock in 1947, will reveal how close we are to midnight, or “doom.” Since the clock was made, nukes have proliferated all over the world. First it was the U.S., and then U.S. and Russia—now nine countries have a nuclear weapons stockpile. It would only take a fraction of that firepower to send us into a nuclear winter, wiping out all life as we know it. The Doomsday Clock was created as a warning—a warning that the most powerful people in the world are playing God. It’s not an exaggeration in the slightest; because of a handful of people, one political misstep or accident and our whole planet is destroyed along with every precious life on it. Governments continue to pour trillions of dollars into developing these weapons while people they are supposed to care about sleep out on the street.
With tensions between the U.S., Russia, China, and Iran at a high, we should all be putting things in the basement, picking our kids up from their playdates, and preparing for disaster. Instead, we walk around like a bomb was never dropped. Like hundreds of thousands of Japanese people didn’t have their lives taken or destroyed. With no reason to believe so, we act like our government would never do it again. While our leaders have bombed a dozen countries to oblivion since World War II ended, we still act like we are the civilians the world ought to care about, like we are untouchable. We aren’t. Mutually assured destruction might be useful if the people with their fingers on the buttons cared for the people they governed, but oftentimes they don’t.
On the other side of doom is just life as we’ve been living it, which isn’t that great for a lot of people.
I asked Carol why she thinks no one is really freaked out about nuclear weapons like they ought to be, whether they be my age or hers. She said, “We have too much.” She was talking specifically about Americans, whose lives are inherently made more comfortable because of the conquest and wars of our past and present. Whether we would like to admit it or not, the United States and the entire modern life it provides is built on war. When I asked Alice, specifically in relation to the Cuban Missile Crisis, if people were scared into becoming anti-nuke activists she said, “You’re asking me if I was scared… I just kept hoping that democracy would prevail in some way, I guess.”
Carol, a Roman Catholic sister, and two other Dominican nuns were convicted of sabotage after pouring their blood into a Minuteman III missile loaded with a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb in Colorado. She spent two and a half years in federal prison for drawing attention to the real weapons of mass destruction while George W. Bush and Dick Cheney made up fake ones in Iraq. In the 1980s, Kathy was greeted by four armed soldiers riding in a large military vehicle after she planted corn on top of a nuclear missile silo in Missouri. A soldier was left behind with Kathy while she was handcuffed, kneeling on the ground. “Do you think the corn will grow?” she asked him. “I don’t know ma’am,” he responded, “but I sure hope so.” Following a trial, Kathy spent nine months in maximum security prison.
Whether or not the Doomsday Clock reveals we are inching closer to midnight or staying where we are, the fear around nuclear Armageddon seems to freeze most of us in our tracks. If the whole world is going to be annihilated and suffering is imminent anyway, why think about it at all? We can cross that bridge to hell when we get there. If there weren’t a nuclear stockpile that could end life at any moment, maybe people would feel more inspired. Afterall, preventing doom isn’t a particularly motivating notion. On the other side of doom is just life as we’ve been living it, which isn’t that great for a lot of people.
Alice, Carol, and Kathy are all inspired activists. When you talk to them you don’t really ever get the sense that they will stop pushing ahead for what they believe in. I met Carol in the halls of Congress last February, despite being over 50 years older than me she was leaving me in the dust. After 12,000 steps on Capitol Hill, she walked with me to a vigil for Aaron Bushnell, an active duty airman who self-immolated over the genocide in Gaza. Never once in any of my conversations with them did I ever get the sense they did what they did out of fear—whether it be fear of war, nuclear winter, or overall doom. They all talk about a world that gives people what they need to survive and thrive. Kathy talked to me about international cooperation and laughed at the idea of borders: “When there’s a nuclear energy accident like Chernobyl or Fukushima, the poison that floats around in the air doesn’t care about your borders.” And she made note of the brilliant atomic scientists, and how quickly they’d figure out how to address the climate catastrophe if only we were to change our priorities. They talk at length about how the world ought to be, and their vision for a better future is what propels them ahead, not doom. Doom isn’t good enough to get us to where we need to go.
Planting corn over a nuclear silo, disrupting a weapons manufacturer, and creating a community of war resisters are steps we can take toward something much more impactful. A world that is mindful about nuclear weapons can push toward their elimination, and we absolutely must. If you’re not moved away from doom, be moved toward peace. At CODEPINK, we’ve created a Peace Clock to give us ways not to just move away from doom, but to bring us closer to the kind of world we want to see. It’s something that’s been within our sight a thousand times. We have to sprint toward it.
“Dear young people who have never experienced the horrors of war—I fear that some of you may be taking this hard-earned peace for granted.”—Takato Michishita
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