News

United Nations secretary general António Guterres recently expressed grave concern over world food shortages in the wake of the Ukraine conflict (EU Observer, May 11, 2022). Prices for grains, cooking oils, fuel, and fertilizer are rising steeply. “For the first time ever, farmers the world over—all at the same time—are testing the limits of how little chemical fertilizer they can apply without devastating their yields come harvest time.

The Guardian reports that the Environmental Working Group, an American activist organization, has found that about 20 million acres of U.S. farmland may be contaminated with PFAS, a class of substances known as “forever chemicals,” that include about 9,000 compounds used to make substances resistant to fire, water, or heat (May 8, 2022).

The book of Revelation prophesies that, prior to the return of Jesus Christ, animals will cause death and devastation. The four prophetic seals opened by Jesus Christ, picturing the famous “four horsemen of the apocalypse,” will bring death to up to one-quarter of mankind. This death will come through warfare, hunger and disease, and from “the beasts of the earth” (Revelation 6:1–8). But how might animals cause such widespread death and destruction?

According to the National Interagency Fire Center, more than a million acres of land in the U.S. have burned so far in 2022—more than double the acreage that saw fires by this time in 2021. “The agency’s accounting also shows that more fires have ignited this year than any other in the last decade and burn totals are more than 71% higher than the ten-year average” (The Guardian, May 1, 2022).

If you are watching world news, you cannot help but see the recent rise in food scarcity around the globe. Escalating food prices are part of this reality. And recently, 29 U.S. states have been culling chickens to prevent the spread of avian flu that is impacting nations around the globe (The Guardian, April 28, 2022). Millions of birds have been slaughtered, with over five million killed at just one egg factory in Iowa!