Blog note. Jesus indicated that ‘fearful sights’ (various natural disasters) would occur leading up to the time known as the Tribulation and Great Tribulation (a combined seven year period of great destruction on earth). Although these types of things have occurred in the past for centuries and thousands of years, they could be identified as the ‘season of the times’ due to the ferociousness of these events. They would be occurring in greater intensity, severity, frequency, size, duration, scope … just like the pains that a woman experiences in labor the farther along she is in the labor process. We are in the ‘season of the times’ that comes just before the seven (7) year Tribulation/Great Tribulation period

… 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).

… And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; (Luke 21:25)

… Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken; (Luke 21:26)

… This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. (2 Timothy 3:1)

Jesus is giving a series of prophecies about what to look for as the age of grace comes to a close. These verses are several 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, growing in intensity, frequency, size and duration.

Climate change threatens hundreds of North American bird species with extinction, study says

By Bill Weir, CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Updated 8:53 AM ET, Thu October 10, 2019

Tampa, Florida (CNN) Nearly 66% of North American birds studied will go extinct if global warming hits 3 degrees Celsius (5.5˚F), a new report from the National Audubon Society finds.

Orioles, eagles, grouse and gulls are among 389 types of bird – over 60% of 600 species assessed on this continent — that are highly or moderately vulnerable to climate change, the study says.

The stark warning follows research published last month that showed the US and Canada had lost 3.0 billion birds in about the last 50 years.

The existential threat to birds also impacts humanity. As canaries warned coalminers of invisible death in the industrial era, now birds of every shape and size can be life-or-death alerts in the age of global warming.

But if humanity can somehow escape the proverbial coal mine in time and hold warming to the Paris Accord target of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7˚F), 76% of the most vulnerable species should survive, the Audubon study states.

“Our findings in this report are the fifth alarm in a five-alarm fire,” says David O’Neill, Audubon’s Chief Conservation Officer, in the study called Survival by Degrees: 389 Bird Species on the Brink.

He called for immediate action to slow the warming of the planet to save birds and much more.

“It’s a combination of changes in temperature, precipitation and vegetation,” says Brooke Bateman, Audubon’s Senior Climate Scientist. “And birds are going to have to move and shift to keep up with these changes. And then on top of the range shifts, we also have the pressure of changes in sea level rise, urbanization, extreme weather events that are going to affect these species no matter where they go.”

Formed in 1905, when the demand for feathered hats nearly drove Florida’s wading birds to extinction, the National Audubon Society is one of the oldest conservation groups in the world. And thanks to the obsessive record-keeping of devout birders, Audubon scientists were able to draw from a database of 140 million records for its study of birds in Mexico, the US and Canada.

Using latest climate models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, they examined the habitats of 600 North American species. Given projected increases in drought, heat, fire, rain and other factors, they found that 389 of the species studied would likely not survive in a world 3 degrees hotter.

Bateman was in second grade when she first heard the haunting call of the common loon on a lake in Wisconsin. That was her “spark bird” that awakened her to a “wonderful, wondrous world of birds.”

“Last year I brought my 5-year-old daughter, and she got to hear the loon for the first time. And it’s like magic, you see it on their face.”

But as a vivid example of what science calls “shifting baseline syndrome,” her daughter’s daughter may never have the same experience.

“(The loon’s) range is going to completely shift out of the US with climate change,” Bateman says. “So you’ll no longer be able to go to that same place, and hear that bird call anymore.”

And more alarming than the loss of songs and flashes of color at the backyard feeder is what birds like the American robin tell us about the speed of the changes.

“Robins are actually overwintering in a lot of places more frequently than they used to and not leaving at all,” Bateman says.

And at the risk of wearing out the analogy, she says every time you see a robin in December, think about that canary in the coal mine.

“Birds are indicators. Birds tell us. They’re the ones that are telling us what’s going on in the environment. And so, we say at Audubon that the birds are telling us it’s time to act.”