The author opens with a grim present: 65 state-involved conflicts last year (a post-1946 high) and about 245,000 battle deaths; a strong El Niño tied to a quiet Atlantic, a busy Pacific, and a record-hot August; climate compared to the end-Permian CO₂ pulse. A 2012 Reuters/Ipsos poll is cited that nearly 15% expected the world to end in their lifetime.

Against fatalism the piece reads Jewish, Christian, and Islamic end-time language (Gog and Magog / Ya’juj and Ma’juj, Mahdi, Messiah) as a call to change society now. Quran 13:11 and prophets sent to every nation are used to argue that a just Messianic Age comes through repentance and work, not waiting for a purge of enemies. Soviet Jewish aliyah is offered as a prophecy already tasted.

On Israel and Palestine the author says leadership rejected two-state formulas from 1937 through 2007, that a 1937 deal might have let more Jews flee the Holocaust, and that most Israelis no longer trust two states after “bitter experience.” Isaiah 19’s Egypt–Assyria–Israel blessing is the hoped-for end.

For 65 conflicts involving at least one state that were recorded worldwide last year, a new high since 1946. Last year was the third deadliest since the end of the Cold War, with around 245,000 deaths directly related to fighting or political violence.

The Atlantic is quiet — a record quiet — this hurricane season thanks to an enormous El Nino that crushes storms before they get going. Just as El Nino traditionally dampens the Atlantic hurricane season, it tends to rev up tropical cyclone activity in the Pacific, with moist air and little wind shear. And so far this year, storm activity in the eastern Pacific is nearly double than normal, with hurricanes lasting much longer than usual. While the Atlantic has had only five small tropical storms, there have been 16 named storms in the eastern Pacific and 20 in the central Pacific.

August was the hottest month ever recorded globally as a huge El Niño emerged in Europe’s climate monitor.  August was the hottest month ever recorded around the world and warned of worse to come as an unprecedented El Niño pattern grows stronger. There is a 69% chance that this year’s El Niño will become the strongest since 1950, the Climate Prediction Center said. And children across Europe have returned to school after a summer of extreme heat. How can students learn when classrooms become dangerously hot? Experts are warning of a record strong El Niño, called “super El Niño.” The weather event is expected to impact global temperatures and rainfall, and could increase the risk of extreme weather events in many parts of the world.

“We will remove whatever bitterness they had in their hearts. Rivers will flow under their feet. And they will say, “Praise be to Allah for guiding us to this. We would have never been guided if Allah had not guided us. The messengers of our Lord had certainly come with the truth.” It will be announced to them, “This is Paradise awarded to you for what you used to do.”” (Quran 7:43)

According to a worldwide poll for Reuters back in May of 2012 “nearly 15 percent of people worldwide believe the world will end during their lifetime”. That number is surely higher now.

Indeed, the whole world is facing humanity’s greatest threat; climate change. The Latest Permian Mass Extinction was the largest extinction in Earth’s history to date, killing between 80–90% of life forms on Planet Earth. Though it happened over 250 million years ago, there are similarities to the major climate changes happening today. Then it was a massive injection of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from massive volcanism occurring at a huge deposit of lava called the Siberian Traps. Today it is a massive injection of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere worldwide from human activities. 

“Whether they think it [the world] will come to an end through the hands of God, or a natural disaster or political events, whatever the reason, one in seven thinks the end of the world is........

© Eurasia Review