Blog note: And great earthquakes shall be in diverse places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven. (Luke 21:11). Jesus is giving a series of prophecies about what to look for as the age of grace comes to a close. This verse from Luke is one of many such prophecies from throughout the Bible. 2017 was the worst year in recorded history for the intensity, frequency, severity, duration and occurrence of a large number of severe natural disasters worldwide. Earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, torrential flooding, unprecedented wildfires in unusual places, devastating droughts, excessive/scorching heat setting records everywhere, record snowfalls in Europe and Russia. Snow in the Arabia. This list can go on. Most studied eschatologists believe these ‘fearful sights’ and massive natural disasters are all part of the ‘CONVERGENCE’ of signs that this Biblical and prophetic age is closing. Most people who study prophecy are familiar with the routine reference(s) made that these things will be like a woman having labor pains that occur in greater severity, frequency and occurrence prior to giving birth. End of note.

 Our climate plans are in pieces as killer summer shreds records

By Angela Dewan, CNN. Updated 6:46 AM ET, Sun August 5, 2018

Deadly fires have scorched swaths of the Northern Hemisphere this summer, from California to Arctic Sweden and down to Greece on the sunny Mediterranean. Drought in Europe has turned verdant land barren, while people in Japan and Korea are dying from record-breaking heat.

Climate change is here and is affecting the entire globe — not just the polar bears or tiny islands vulnerable to rising sea levels — scientists say. It is on the doorsteps of everyday Americans, Europeans and Asians, and the best evidence shows it will get much worse.

This summer, 119 people in Japan died in a heat wave, while 29 were killed in South Korea, officials there say. Ninety-one people in Greece died in wildfires, and ongoing fires in California have taken at least eight lives. Spain and Portugal sweltered through an exceptionally hot weekend with a heat wave that has killed three people in Spain and pushed temperatures toward record levels..

Deadly heat waves will become more frequent and occur in more places on the planet in coming decades, according to a study published last summer in the journal Nature Climate Change. Extreme heat waves are frequently cited as one of the most direct effects of man-made climate change.

Remarkably, scientists can now work out in just a matter of days how much human-induced climate change has had to do with a particular weather event, using a combination of observation, historical data and current information from weather stations.

“The European heat wave was at least twice as likely to happen because of human intervention. Based on findings in Ireland it was double — and we know that with very high confidence — and based on data from all other weather stations it was more than double,” said Karsten Haustein from the World Weather Attribution Project, part of Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute.

Scientists have been able to use this kind of modeling for more than a decade, but improved technology now allows them to do it nearly in real time, letting people understand the links between what they are seeing and climate change.

Despite the deadly summer, overwhelming evidence that humans are altering the planet, and ever-improving science that links specific weather events to global warming, the international politics around the issue of climate change are in disarray. And there are alarming signs that the planet may be in worse shape than ever before.

“People are increasingly connecting the dots when they see these weather events happening across the United States,” Leiserowitz said.

“It’s about the pattern — if an extreme event happens once or twice, it’s just a coincidence, but three, five, 12, 22 times, seeing record-setting events, seeing 1,000-year event after 1,000-year event happen frequently, people begin to see that larger pattern, that climate change is actually affecting the weather today. And that’s a new concept for many Americans.”

This increase in awareness appears to be happening in Redding, California. The Carr Fire has torched more than 130,000 acres of land — the equivalent of nearly 100,000 football fields — and it became so big and hot this week, it created its own weather system.

Firefighter Gabriel Lauderdale, 29, has lived all his life by the forest near Redding, and he says even that’s enough time to have noticed the pattern and behavior of wildfires change dramatically.

“There seems to be more destructive wildfires and they’re happening more frequently,” said Lauderdale.

“It used to be that a 10,000-acre fire was a large fire, and in these cases, we’re seeing many exceed 100,000 acres, and they reach that size relative quickly. They move into homes and businesses, and they move very fast from structure to structure.”

CNN’s Brandon Miller, Judson Jones, John Sutter, Laura Smith-Spark and Mark Oliver contributed to this report.