Humanity has thrown the global water cycle off balance “for the first time in human history,” fueling a growing water disaster that will wreak havoc on economies, food production and lives. The water cycle refers to the complex system by which water moves around Planet Earth.

Decades of destructive land use and water mismanagement have collided with the human-caused climate crisis to put “unprecedented stress” on the global water cycle, said a report published in mid October 2024 by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water. The water crisis threatens more than 50% of global food production, and risks shaving an average of 8% off countries’ GDPs by 2050, with much higher losses of up to 15% projected in low-income countries.

Ex-president Donald Trump has pledged to dismantle the Biden administration’s “green new scam” in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. He vowed to boost production of fossil fuels; oil, natural gas and coal, and repeal key parts of the Biden 2022 climate law. During his first term in office, Trump dismantled much of the groundwork laid by his predecessor Barack Obama. Trump rolled back nearly 100 different environmental rules and regulations on air pollution, carbon emissions and toxic substances.

When voters go to the polls on 5 November, they’ll likely be locking in four years of vastly different climate change policy. Don’t forget the summer 2024 was Planet Earth’s hottest on record. Phoenix climbed over a scorching 110 degrees on 80 days in 2024 — shattering last year’s record of 55 days of temperatures over 110 degrees. Trump will make life hot, not cool.

New heat records come amid 13 months in a row of record-breaking temperatures on Earth; not just over land, but in the oceans too. Before 2023, the record highest temperature was 16.8 °C, set in August 2016. Since mid-2023, the planet has broken that 2016 threshold 58 times.

Jews and Muslims must concentrate on the challenges facing our world. Both Islam and Judaism teach their followers to take care of the earth. Muslims and Jews also believe that humans should act as guardians and trustees (stewardship and khalifah) off our planet, and that they will be held accountable by God for their actions.

If humans will not reduce man made carbon magnification, not even the coming of Mahdi and Messiahs may be able to overcome human unwillingness to reverse human pollution. God demands that humans fulfill their God given responsibilities.

Meanwhile, in human societies corruption heats up and self-centeredness increases. In mid October of 2024, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay $880 million to victims of clergy sexual abuse dating back decades to 1,353 people who suffered abuse at the hands of local Catholic priests, after months of negotiations with the archdiocese of Los Angeles, the most populous archdiocese in the United States.

The total economic losses caused by natural disasters hit an estimated $72 billion in the first half of 2022, fueled by storms and floods, Swiss reinsurance giant Swiss Re estimated. And according to a 2020 Oxfam report, the richest 10% of the global population produce half of the Earth’s fossil-fuel emissions, while the poorest half contribute a mere 10%.

And for the first time in two decades, there are now more closed autocracies than liberal democracies in the world according to the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem Institute) at the University of Gothenburg. The democratic melting decline has taken place globally, and an increasing number of people are living in closed autocracies.

The level of democracy enjoyed by the average world........

© Eurasia Review