“We don’t know if our son is alive, and he doesn’t know if we are alive,” said Beverly Eller, a resident of Swannanoa, North Carolina, during a Washington Post interview published September 28.

Eller is one of more than 2 million people in the southeastern United States who were impacted by Hurricane Helene. The storm slammed into Florida’s coast as a Category 4 hurricane on the night of September 26, then weakened to a tropical storm as it tore through Florida, Georgia, Alabama, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia.

Eller’s home had never once flooded during the 37 years she lived in it with her family. Now it is utterly destroyed as a result of floodwaters from what meteorologists describe as a “once-in-a-thousand-year” storm.

Raging rivers and landslides felled countless trees and destroyed roads and bridges, cutting off access to many mountain communities. Furious floodwaters washed numerous homes and businesses off their foundations. And more than 2 million people were left without power, phone lines, cell service and Internet for extended durations, preventing all contact with the outside world.

At the time of this writing, more than 165 people are confirmed dead, and the number is certain to rise as the waters fall, revealing more of the extreme destruction.

“We haven’t cried yet,” Eller said as she sat beside her husband in the Toyota vehicle that now serves as their temporary residence. “We are just in survival mode.”

Their other vehicle was swept away by the floodwaters, along with the stability that the Ellers and countless other families in the region thought they had built into their lives.

Atlas Shrugged

The situation is similar in regions and nations all over the globe as people grapple with chaotic and destructive weather.

2024 started with a bang: A 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck Japan on January 1, killing 401 people and destroying tens of thousands of homes. In April, America’s Midwest and Great Plains suffered a bizarrely intense outbreak of tornadoes, with more than 100 touching down and wreaking havoc in a span of just four days. From April to May, heatwaves of unprecedented temperature and duration scorched Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, killing dozens and impacting millions. At the same time, unprecedented floods inundated parts of Brazil, killing at least 160 people, displacing more than a million others, and devastating great swaths of the nation. Meanwhile, a different Brazilian region suffered drought and wildfires that authorities called “the most intense and widespread in Brazil’s history.” About 1.5 million acres were devoured, and tens of thousands of people displaced. In mid-September, Typhoon Yagi battered Southeast Asia, killing almost 300 in Vietnam, more than 220 in Myanmar, 42 in Thailand, 21 in the Philippines and 4 in Laos. And the deaths are only the most extreme aspect of the destruction. In Myanmar alone, the flooding also displaced 240,000 people and destroyed more than 160,000 houses, 1,040 schools, more than 120 government buildings, almost 400 religious centers and hundreds of roads and bridges.

Throughout man’s history, human beings have wrestled with adverse weather, but in recent years the extremes seem to be getting more severe and touching more peoples’ lives. Part of the reason the damage and destruction are increasing is that the global population is growing, and recent decades have seen people around the world move en masse to large cities near water.

Never in living memory have so many people suffered so many severe, deadly and erratic extremes in weather. The big question is why? Is mankind’s industry and pollution to blame? Is there something larger at play?

What Controls the Weather?

The question of what controls the planet’s weather has become a political and deeply divisive one. Most on the political left say the increasingly erratic conditions are entirely the result of mankind’s destructive industrial activities. The storms, floods and fires, they say, are cosmic payback for man’s environmental sins. Many also say this is the most urgent problem facing humanity, and they throw all their weight behind efforts to reduce the carbon emissions from industrialized nations. No matter what economic consequences may result, they argue, industry (especially American industry) must be reduced so the planet can survive.

For many people, belief in industry-fueled climate change has become a religion. Anyone who dares express skepticism about any aspect of it is lambasted as a flat-Earth know-nothing.

Largely because of this ultra-orthodox leftist stance, many on the political right have gone to the other extreme, saying the idea of man-made climate change is a hoax. “You’ve been offered a way out of the guilt for having contributed to the destruction of the planet,” the late Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show back in 2013, “and that is if you will go out and buy a hybrid, or if you will oppose oil companies, or if you will oppose fracking, if you will oppose the Keystone pipeline, if you will oppose the growth of any fossil fuel industry, then you’re a good person. … It’s all a hoax. … Your time on Earth is barely the size of the head of a pin, if that big. So what possible impact could you be making?”

What is the truth?

Take a look at the climate of the Middle East. Historically, much of this region was covered with lush forests and verdant vegetation. But in the early 1900s, the Ottoman Turks undertook massive tree-felling operations to build the Hejaz Railway from Damascus to Medina. The deserts that now dominate many parts of the region are the direct result of that project. Widespread deforestation begets desertification. Desertification alters regional climates. This is a clear example of climate change resulting from man’s economic activity.

Evidence shows that slash-and-burn techniques, converting forested areas into concrete jungles, pollution from industrial production, and exhaust from planes, trains and automobiles have contributed to weather variation. It is also clear that developing irrigation systems, building lakes and dams, draining aquifers and swamps, and engaging in massive-scale monoculture farming contribute to climatic variation. It is clear that some of the weather calamity we are suffering is mankind reaping the results of environmental mismanagement, poor stewardship, errors and greed.

However, it is not scientifically possible to attribute the sheer scale of the erratic weather that nations around the world are suffering to man’s industrial behaviors.

His Way in the Whirlwind

Scientific observation of physical evidence can only tell a small part of the story. To understand the rest, we have to turn to a source that most would not think to consult for such matters: God’s revealed Word, the Holy Bible.

The earliest chapters of the Bible depict God creating Earth’s continents and oceans, as well as the atmosphere, climate and the intricately woven ecosystems. And unlike modern meteorologists who struggle even to predict short-term weather, the Bible accurately forecasts long-term trends and even pinpoints the primary cause of weather disasters.

“[T]he Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm,” the Prophet Nahum wrote. “He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers …. [T]he earth is burned at his presence …. But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof ” (Nahum 1:3-5, 8).

In the above passage and dozens of others, the Bible makes plain that there is a spiritual dimension to weather. Many modern people view themselves as too sophisticated to believe such a fact, but the fact is not dependent on belief. Nature is not only a creation originating from God’s mind, but God also “has His way” in weather phenomena—for the purpose of communicating with the most important part of His creation: mankind.

What is the message? What is He communicating through Hurricane Helene and other brutal disasters? Study Leviticus 26:19-20; 2 Chronicles 6:26-27 and especially Job 37:11-13. If you believe that the Bible is the Word of God, then the message is inescapably clear: God intervenes through weather to deliver blessings for obedience and to mete out punishment for sinfulness.

Look at modern systems of education, politics, military, industry, entertainment and even religion. Look at the widespread indulgence in sin. Modern nations have shoved God out of every facet of life. By shaking up the weather, God is trying to get through to His creation so we will understand this. He is trying to make us think about cause and effect, and what happens when people reject the law of the God who gave them life. He is showing mankind that we are breaking laws which, if kept, would cause joy, peace, happiness and “rain in due season.”

Modern meteorologists fail to recognize this pivotal dimension in weather because they, like the majority of mankind, are deceived about the most basic realities of life (Revelation 12:9). This failure prevents them from seeing the direct correlation between wrong ways of living and catastrophic weather.

Devotees of the man-made climate change religion are wrong. They say man’s industry is responsible for erratic weather—at the same time that they fight to accelerate the cultural shifts that are destroying families and individuals. True, mankind’s industry and pollution are having some effect on unstable weather patterns, but the primary cause—by a wide margin—is man’s increasing and prideful lawlessness. You may not think the unprecedented proliferation of deceit, greed, hedonism, abortion and other kinds of child abuse are hurting nations economically, but the Bible says they are.

Mankind’s actions are causing worsening weather because our lawlessness is causing our Creator to punish us—for our long-term benefit. Weather is a tool He uses to accomplish this punishment.

The Future Forecast

The Bible foretold the onslaught of floods, droughts and other disasters the world is now suffering. It also says that today’s conditions will soon seem mild compared to the completely berserk weather ahead (Ezekiel 5:16; Revelation 8:4-12). God will soon unleash unprecedented forces of nature on this rebellious world to humble the people and bring the nations to their knees in repentance (Isaiah 45:22-25).

But it is not all stormy weather ahead. After that period of intense punishment and the resulting repentance, God promises He will “heal the land” (2 Chronicles 7:13-14). Under God’s government of love, all men will keep God’s law and abide by His commandments. Then God promises that instead of weather curses, He “will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing. And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase” (Ezekiel 34:26-27). During this beautiful future time, even the currently scorched deserts of the Earth will “rejoice, and blossom as the rose” (Isaiah 35:1).