The prophet Joel commanded the people of his day, 'Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain.' (Joel 2.1)
In our day, reasons for alarm are all too apparent. The average global temperature last year was the hottest ever recorded: 'What we’ve seen with 2023 is off the charts' (Gavin Schmidt, director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute in The Guardian). 'I want you to panic…,' said Greta Thunberg in 2019; now, after last year, no description seems too extreme for even experienced scientists.
Granted, 'it remains to be seen if 2023 is merely an unusual outlier' (Robert Rohde, lead scientist at Berkeley Earth), or an early indication that climate change could soon spin out of control. However, it’s undeniable that last year saw large numbers of extreme weather conditions, right throughout the world.
