Doomsday Clock stands at 89 seconds to midnight - but we'll never see it strike zero - The Mirror

The Doomsday Clock currently sits at 89 seconds to midnight in 2025, marking humanity's closest approach to global catastrophe - but scientists say we'll never actually witness it reach the final hour

The Doomsday Clock, a chilling symbol of global annihilation, is edging perilously towards midnight following a year plagued by conflict, environmental disasters, and political upheaval.

Established in 1947 by scientists who worked on the infamous Manhattan Project, this metaphorical clock acts as a sobering gauge of how close humanity stands to its own demise. As the clock's hands creep towards the final hour, midnight represents an irreversible tipping point for civilisation. At present, they rest at their most dangerous position in history.

The Chicago-based Bulletin of Atomic Scientists adjusts the clock annually, monitoring existential dangers arising from geopolitical tensions, climate breakdown, and nuclear arms.

Rachel Bronson, the organisation's CEO, said: "When the clock is at midnight, that means there's been some sort of nuclear exchange or catastrophic climate change that's wiped out humanity. We never really want to get there and we won't know it when we do."

On January 28 2025, the Bulletin moved the Doomsday Clock forward, placing it at just 89 seconds to midnight – the nearest to catastrophe since it began.

Given such a knife-edge situation, the year ahead could descend into even greater disorder, eclipsing the turbulent previous 300-plus days. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has issued a chilling alert, warning that humanity faces "a time of unprecedented danger" primarily driven by the "exceedingly" perilous nuclear situation surrounding Russia's war with Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov previously expressed alarm but blamed NATO and the United States for ramping up hostilities.

He stated: "This makes it incumbent on us to be particularly attentive, vigilant and responsive, and take appropriate measures."

Beyond nuclear risks, climate change has become increasingly prominent, particularly after the Bulletin began factoring it into its calculations in 2007. Bulletin scientist Sivan Kartha, from the Stockholm Environmental Institute, highlighted the concerning trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions: "Global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, after having rebounded from the COVID-19 decline to an all-time high in 2021, continue to rise and hit another record high...With emissions still rising, weather extremes continue, and were even more clearly attributable to climate change."

Yet, Bulletin members such as Professor Robert Rosner stress the Doomsday Clock shouldn't be viewed as a harbinger of despair but instead as a call to action—likening it to a "canary in a coal mine" and emphasising humanity's capacity to work together in addressing critical worldwide challenges. The Doomsday Clock reached its most distant point from midnight back in 1991, when the Cold War officially drew to a close and both America and Russia put pen to paper on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

At the time, the Bulletin issued a powerful declaration: "The illusion that tens of thousands of nuclear weapons are a guarantor of national security has been stripped away".