Nearly four-in-ten Americans say we're “living in the end times,” says a poll taken against a stark backdrop of climate change, the pandemic, nuclear brinkmanship, and doomsday cults.

A Pew Research Center survey of more than 10,000 adults, conducted in April of 2022, found that 39 percent called these the “end times,” while 58 percent were assured that humanity was not careening towards catastrophe.

Researchers linked the high number of doomsayers to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed 6.65 million lives globally, and fears about living on a warming planet with fiercer hurricanes and wildfires. They could also add the threat of a war using nuclear weapons and greater political division and unrest.

Researchers added: “Periods of catastrophe and anxiety, such as the coronavirus pandemic, have historically led some people to anticipate that the destruction of the world as we know it — the 'end times' — is near.” Those fears relate to present-day realities as well as looking back to “sacred scripture” and the expectation among Christians that “Jesus will return to Earth after or amid a time of great turmoil.”

While nearly half of Christians say Judgement Day is closing in, there are big differences within the faith—63 percent of evangelicals call these the end times, but only 27 percent of Catholics agree.

There's also a political tilt—45 percent of Republicans see doomsday coming, against just 33 percent of Democrats. College graduates were more skeptical of the looming apocalypse than were those with only high school certificates.