The Doomsday Clock is currently at 85 seconds to midnight — the closest it has ever been to global catastrophe since its creation in 1947.

The Doomsday Clock is a symbol that represents the estimated likelihood of a human-made global catastrophe, in the opinion of the nonprofit organisation Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists

The Bulletin‘s Science and Security Board monitors new developments in the life sciences and technology that could inflict irrevocable harm to humanity.

“Midnight” has a deeper meaning besides the constant threat of war. There are various elements taken into consideration when the scientists from the Bulletin decide what Midnight and “global catastrophe” really mean in a particular year. They might include “politics, energy, weapons, diplomacy, and climate science”; potential sources of threat include nuclear threats, climate change, bioterrorism, and artificial intelligence. Members of the board judge Midnight by discussing how close they think humanity is to the end of civilisation. In 1947, at the beginning of the Cold War, the Clock was started at seven minutes to midnight.”