The Doomsday Clock: A Call for Action

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ 2026 Doomsday Clock—currently at 85 seconds to midnight, the most immediate since its inception in 1947, serves as an important metaphor for thinking about today’s existential dangers and how to best get a handle on them. The clock represents not a literal prediction, but a clear public warning that combines many kinds of evidence about how close we may be to major worldwide cataclysm.

Join Bebo White to examine four major areas of risk—nuclear conflict, climate change, biological threats, and fast-moving new technologies like AI and most importantly, how these problems can reinforce each other. We’ll focus on how practical choices: steady leadership, cooperation, strong public institutions, and specific steps such as rebuilding arms talks, improving climate policy, strengthening public health, and setting limits on risky uses of AI could significantly reduce these dangers and “move the clock back.”

Bebo White is retired from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the U.S. national laboratory for high-energy physics and basic energy science at Stanford University where he worked as a computational physicist.

He also holds faculty appointments at multiple academic institutions, is involved with a number of major conferences series, and is a frequent conference and seminar speaker. He is the author (or co-author) of nine books, and over 100 papers and journal articles.