In 1999, while researching a book about potential future disaster scenarios, I interviewed about a hundred scientists from various fields, many of them—the largest clutch—involved, in some way, with the weather (whether climatologist, paleo climatologist, or meteorologist).

Government scientists and academics in every part of North America were interviewed, and from various spots around the world, from the most august academic institutions to state agencies and foreign bureaus, including director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Climatic Data Center, an obscure agency that possesses the most complete weather records on the planet.

These were scientists who’ve served under both conservative and liberal presidents.

Virtually every one of them, and no matter race or nationality, agreed that our planet was at a critical stage.

We—the world—now stand at the threshold of a “tipping point.”

This is not a notion of politics. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with signs and movements of God.

“The seasons will be altered,” Mary had said in one of the messages from LaSalette in France in 1846.

Stunning in retrospect is how accurate those scientists and public officials were in foreseeing the kind of weather trends and events now smacking us in the face (from potent hurricanes like “Katrina” to wholesale shifts in landscape). The predictions I heard with my own ears have now materialized before us. What the world is encountering is dramatically similar to the global warming of the High Middle Ages (especially the 1200s and first half of the 1300s, before there was a dramatic reversal). That period–like our own, but even more so—was ravaged by food shortages and plague.

It was also a time when seers and other prophets rose on all sides in warning.

Like the Middle Ages, glaciers are now melting. Arctic ice has shrunken by more than fourteen percent, according to NASA. In some parts of Alaska, it’s not unusual for temperatures to be eight or even ten degrees above average.

Once indigenous to Mexico, Checkerspot butterflies are being spotted in Canada.

We’re not just talking about warm summers but entire warm years.

Will we one day not too long away have entire cold years? Or simply continue to toast, as we have this summer?

If so, deserts will further expand. Grasslands will flourish in some regions that had been exsiccated. Seawater will encroach on coastal cities (really, already has). Tornadic outbreaks will sweep through areas that had never previously witnessed a funnel cloud.

Once a certain temperature was reached, those scientists and government officials had said, there could be all mayhem.

Most pegged it at one to two degrees Celsius. We are almost there. (The famous nun Mother Angelica, got that point, promoting the book that resulted from the aforesaid research, Sent To Earth, on three separate shows.)

In 2023, the average global temperature was 1.18°C (2.12°F) above the 20th-century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F), and 2.43°F (1.35°C) above the pre-industrial average. This makes 2023 the warmest year since global records began in 1850.

The rate of warming has been more than three times faster since 1982, at 0.36° Fahrenheit (0.20° Celsius) per decade. A study published in Communications Earth & Environment found a clear indication of a step-up in warming rate since around 1990.

That’s interesting because for years now (more than three decades, to be more accurate) we have been quoting what we dubbed the “1990 Prophecy,” the anonymous locution to a person in the U.S. who has received a number of additions to it since, projections that, often in rather startling fashion, have proved accurate.

Among other things, the alleged prophecy had said, “Your era is ending. Soon the world will not be the world you know.” 

The ten warmest years in the historical record have all occurred in the past decade (2014–2023), with 2023 being the warmest year since global records began in 1850. The average temperature for 1991–2020 was 14.4°C.

The average global temperature between 1850 and 1900 was around 13.84°C (56.91°F).

With recent heat, 2024 is now sure to surpass 2023.

That should concern us all. That should be a wake-up call—more than a wake-up call. It is a sign of the times.

Many unexpected trends and events come with what seem (to the layman) like minor increases in average temperature; to a scientist, a tenth of a degree averaged globally can be alarming.

There comes a point at which the entire scheme of biology can flip, as can the very appearance of continents.

We’re right at the cusp—within years of that, if temperatures continue their relentless upward march.

Scientists believe that during the past 100,000 years there have been at least twenty-two “climatic jolts”: times when change came with what in geologic time is nearly instantly.

There was a time when the Sahara Desert was covered with lakes and fully vegetated.

The transition occurred with startling speed: over an estimated hundred years, a mere moment in geological time.

“We used to think climate changed gradually, like slowly turning up a dial on an oven,” Dr. Jeffrey P. Severinhaus of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography told me. Not any longer. There have been times when it’s believed the Arctic increased nine to eighteen degrees in less than thirty years.

Is the switch about to be thrown again? Is the “oven” on high, or just warming up?

The climate is swerving: for now, in an upward pattern, as during the onset of the Medieval Event, which ended with a precipitous drop in climate (and a miniature “ice age”). Will that too come–incredible cold?

We can pray.

And we can say:

Who can deny God’s signs?

–MHB

[resources: Sent To Earth]

[Footnote: Said Mother Angelica: “If you didn’t buy his book, you’re missing it. It’s not a scary book; it’s a very good book. If you haven’t bought it I would buy it. I think it’s a great book, just terrific. I think it’s important for my future and your future. I want you to read Sent To Earth. Why? It’s logical, it’s truthful, it’s sensible, and it’s God’s way of saying, ‘Let’s be ready.'”]

[Footnote from the mail ( James Miller): “If journalists were curious, they could ask a simple question like I did, and use a search engine to find the answer: ‘What are the warmest summers on record?’ The following information populated: The warmest summer on record was in 1936 during the Dust Bowl, which was before we had central air…so it was colder for more than eight decades, while the population was rising rapidly, and while our use of the natural resources (which supposedly causes warming) was exploding. (It should be noted that there was essentially no air conditioning of any type in 1936.)