We are as close to apocalypse as we’ve ever been before, in part because of Donald Trump’s tweets, scientists have warned.

The Doomsday Clock now stands at two minutes to midnight. It has only been that dangerous during the depths of the nuclear age, they warned.

The change came with a warning from many of the world’s most eminent scientists: that if politicians aren’t doing enough to keep the world safe, they must rise up and force them to do so.

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New danger is being brought to the world because the US administration finds it so hard to formulate nuclear policy, scientists said. That is partly due to Donald Trump’s habit of tweeting inflammatory messages to enemies including North Korea, said the Bulletin of Nuclear Scientists, which runs the clock.

The scientists also made specific reference to the breakdown in negotiations between the US and both Russia and Iran. It said that arms control talks have failed in both countries, and suggested the world was dangerously close to falling into a nuclear arms race.

But the scientists said there was the possibility of reversing the trend of increasing danger. Moving closer to midnight was a recognition of the danger but also a plea to move it back again – something that could be done by getting back to arms control and responding to the threat of climate change.

The change was a recognition that those efforts were not happening enough yet, however. Scientists said that the change wasn’t simply a recognition of the threat of climate change or nuclear war – but also that the media, science and even truth were being undermined, hampering their ability to respond to the problems.

The last time the world was in this much danger was 1953, when both the US and the Soviet Union launched their hydrogen bombs.