Earth Changes

Total Planetary Collapse: The World’s Vertebrate Population Has Fallen By An Average Of 60 Percent Since 1970

The clock is ticking for humanity, and it is not just because our financial system is heading for the biggest implosion that any of us have ever seen.  The truth is that we are literally running out of everything.  We will not have enough oil to meet our energy needs long before we get to the end of this century.  The lack of fresh water is already a major crisis in many parts of the world.  Our air and our soil are more polluted than they have ever been before.  And at this point we can barely feed the entire planet, but global demand for food is expected to escalate dramatically in the years ahead.  If we continue doing things the way that we have been doing them, a future filled with famine, civil unrest, environmental chaos and war appears to be inevitable.  We are literally on the verge of total planetary collapse, but because this is happening in slow-motion most people don’t feel an urgency to do anything about it.

And to a certain extent, the damage has already been done.  This week, the WWF released a report which found that the vertebrate population of the world has fallen by an average of 60 percent since 1970.  the following comes from NBC News…

The population of the planet’s vertebrates has dropped an average of 60 percent since 1970, according to a report by the WWF conservation organization.

The most striking decline in vertebrate population was in the tropics in South and Central America, with an 89 percent loss compared to 1970. Freshwater species have also significantly fallen — down 83 percent in that period.

You may be thinking that you are not a big fan of the WWF, and I certainly am not either.

But even if their numbers are off by half, we are still talking about a planetary disaster of unprecedented magnitude.

Vertebrates include all mammals, fish, birds, amphibians and reptiles.  Species after species is being wiped out, and enormous holes are forming in the global food chain.

I don’t know if I even have the words to describe what we are facing.  The chief executive of the WWF says that what we are experiencing is “death by a thousand cuts”…

The animals that remain will fight against warming oceans choked with plastic, toppled rain forests may zero out fragile species, and refuges such as coral reefs may nearly die off.

That will transform life as humanity knows it, said Carter Roberts, the chief executive of the WWF in the United States, if societies do not reverse course to protect the food, water and shelter needed for survival.

“The numbers are astonishingly bad,” Roberts told The Washington Post. “It’s death by a thousand cuts.”

There are a couple of other numbers from the report that I wanted to highlight.

First of all, the report states that nearly 6 billion tons of fish and invertebrates have been taken out of our oceans since 1950.  Today, over 4 billion people get at least some of their protein from eating fish, and if we do not start doing a better job of taking care of our oceans we are going to be facing a horrific planetary famine very soon.

Secondly, the report also claims that 90 percent of all seabirds in the world now have plastic in their stomachs.

Back in 1960, that number was sitting at just 5 percent.

We are literally filling up our oceans with our plastic waste, and in the process we are destroying our future.  For much, much more on this, please see my recent article entitled “There Are Trillions Of Pieces Of Floating Plastic In Our Oceans, And If We Don’t Stop All Marine Life Will Eventually Be Dead”.

The time to act is now, but it is extremely difficult to get the entire world to act in unison on anything, and most of the “environmental solutions” that are being proposed today are complete rubbish.

But “doing nothing” is certainly not an option either.  Without our natural environment, modern societies would cease to exist, and this is a point that the report made very clearly…

The report urged quick action to avoid irreversible change to the planet, including a shift to green energy and environmentally friendly food production.

“What is clear is that without a dramatic move beyond ‘business as usual’ the current severe decline of the natural systems that support modern societies will continue,” the report said.

And Tanya Steele was even more direct when she spoke with CNN…

Tanya Steele, the WWF’s chief executive in Britain, put it more bluntly to CNN: “We are the first generation to know we are destroying our planet and the last one that can do anything about it.”

Years ago, I remember watching a DVD entitled “Collapse” by Michael Ruppert.  I know that many of you probably watched it as well, because at the time it was very popular.  In that video, Ruppert made some excellent points about our limited natural resources.  But things have gotten so much worse than when he originally put that DVD out, and if he was alive today he would be absolutely horrified at how rapidly things have fallen apart.

Infinite growth is not possible on a planet with limited natural resources, and at this point we are literally running out of everything.

Will we be the generation that will be remembered for turning things around, or will we be the generation that will be remembered for destroying the Earth?

I would certainly like for it to be the former, but I have a feeling that it will turn out to be the latter.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

The Last Days Warrior Summit is the premier online event of 2018 for Christians, Conservatives and Patriots.  It is a premium members-only international event that will empower and equip you with the knowledge and tools that you need as global events begin to escalate dramatically.  The speaker list includes Michael Snyder, Mike Adams, Dave Daubenmire, Ray Gano, Dr. Daniel Daves, Gary Kah, Justus Knight, Doug Krieger, Lyn Leahz, Laura Maxwell and many more. Full summit access will begin on October 25th, and if you would like to register for this unprecedented event you can do so right here.

The Stock Market Has Just Done Something That It Hasn’t Done Since 2009

We continue to see extremely wild swings on Wall Street.  On Monday, at one point the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 352 points, and then later it was down 566 points.  At the closing bell the Dow had officially lost 245 points, and all of this extreme volatility is making investors very nervous.  Investors like markets that are predictable, because it is a whole lot easier to make money when things move in a predictable fashion.  When things get crazy, a lot of investors pull their money out and wait until things settle down in the marketplace, and that definitely makes a lot of sense.  Right now, there is a lot of uncertainty about where things are ultimately headed.  Some experts believe that the bull market will resume after this “correction” is over, but others believe that a bear market has now begun.  And as you will see below, the fact that the S&P 500 has now broken a major trendline that has not been broken since 2009 is strengthening the case of the latter group.

Many had anticipated that we may see a bounce on Monday, but instead we witnessed another very large decline.  According to Zero Hedge, all of the major stock indexes are now officially in correction territory…

  • Dow -10.1%
  • S&P -10.8%
  • Nasdaq Composite -14.4%
  • Dow Transports -15.5%
  • Russell 2000 -15.5%

Tech stocks got hit harder than anything else on Monday, and at this point they are down 13.3 percent from the peak.  Each one of the FANG stocks is now in bear market territory, and many on Wall Street are stunned that this has happened so quickly.

But as I have warned my readers many times, markets tend to go down a whole lot faster than they go up.

The main thing that rattled investors on Monday was news that the Trump administration might slap even more tariffs on Chinese imports…

President Donald Trump’s administration is prepared to announce tariffs on remaining Chinese imports if talks next month between Trump and Xi Jinping do not yield results, Bloomberg reported. Such a move is likely to prolong the standoff between the U.S. and China over trade and is expected to hurt the global economy.

Analysts are also blaming the stock market’s weakness in October on a variety of factors, including worries that U.S. corporate earnings growth has peaked and fears of a U.S. monetary policy misstep by the Federal Reserve.

The Chinese do not respond well to threats and intimidation, and our relations with China are the worst that they have been in decades.  This is going to have huge implications for all of us, and this is a major storyline that we will want to revisit again and again in the months ahead.

Getting back to the market, we are starting to see things happen that we have not witnessed since the last financial crisis.

Specifically, the S&P 500 just broke the bull market trendline that had not been violated since the market bottomed out in early 2009.  The following comes from Graham Summers…

That’s bad news. But unfortunately it gets worse from here. Stocks have violated the monthly trendline running back to the 2009 for the first time in this bull market.

So when we talk about the bull market ending… we’re not just talking about the 2016-2018 run… we’re talking about THE ENTIRE bull market running back to the 2009 bottom.

You can see the chart that he is referring to right here.  The fact that this trendline has now been broken is a huge sell signal, and it is yet another indication that a new financial crisis has begun.

And it isn’t just the U.S. that is in trouble.  In fact, the U.S. is still in much better shape than the rest of the world.

Right now, approximately 58 percent of the 2,767 stocks listed on MSCI’s global index are officially in bear market territory.

Things have deteriorated so rapidly that even Jim Cramer of CNBC is starting to talk like a bear…

There have only been four times in Jim Cramer’s career when the stock guru and former hedge fund manager sold out of his entire portfolio. And, scary as it sounds, the market action of the past few weeks reminds him of those chaotic moments.

“As much as it pains me to say this, the current situation combines … some of the worst characteristics of those four past breakdowns,” Cramer told investors on Monday as much of the stock market slid into correction territory.

Hopefully we will see a bounce on Tuesday and things will settle down on Wall Street for the rest of this week.

But whether that happens or not, this crisis is far from over.

Stock prices should have never gotten this high.  The only reason they reached such absurd heights was due to unprecedented intervention by the Federal Reserve.  And now the Federal Reserve seems determined to burst the bubble that they originally created, and that is going to cause immense pain for investors.

In order for valuations to return to their long-term averages, stock prices would still need to decline another 40 percent from current levels, but because our system is so leveraged a decline of that magnitude would be absolutely crippling for our financial system and would create the greatest credit crunch that any of us have ever seen.

And a credit crunch of that magnitude would instantly plunge the U.S. into an economic depression.

This financial bubble has lasted for much longer than it should have, but we desperately need it to continue, because the alternative is an economic horror show of unprecedented magnitude.

Unfortunately it appears that this bubble is now bursting, and that is extremely bad news for all of us.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

The Last Days Warrior Summit is the premier online event of 2018 for Christians, Conservatives and Patriots.  It is a premium members-only international event that will empower and equip you with the knowledge and tools that you need as global events begin to escalate dramatically.  The speaker list includes Michael Snyder, Mike Adams, Dave Daubenmire, Ray Gano, Dr. Daniel Daves, Gary Kah, Justus Knight, Doug Krieger, Lyn Leahz, Laura Maxwell and many more. Full summit access will begin on October 25th, and if you would like to register for this unprecedented event you can do so right here.

A Perfect Storm Is Brewing

Will we someday look back on October 2018 as the turning point?  As the month began, people were generally feeling pretty good about things, and the U.S. stock market quickly set a new all-time high.  But from that point on, the wheels fell off for Wall Street.  We just witnessed the worst October for U.S. stocks since the financial crisis of 2008, and at this point more than 8 trillion dollars of global wealth has been completely wiped out.  But it isn’t just the stock market that is being shaken.  The horrific violence in Pittsburgh is just the latest in a string of events that have rattled the entire nation.  Sometimes I feel like I am literally watching the fabric of our society come apart right in front of my eyes.  It is almost as if there is a tangible presence of evil in the air, and it seems to be getting stronger over time.  For quite a while I have been warning that levels of anger and frustration are rising to unprecedented levels, and all of that anger and frustration is leading people to do things that are absolutely unthinkable.  And if people are this crazed now, how bad are things going to get once the economy really starts unraveling?

Let there be no doubt – if U.S. stocks crash really hard, it will cause a massive credit crunch, and that would absolutely strangle economic activity.

Yes, October was bad, but we can recover from what happened in October.

But if November and December are equally as bad or worse, we could have a nightmarish crisis on our hands very rapidly.  And many experts believe that this market is ultimately going to decline much, much further.

For example, just consider what Wolf Richter is saying…

So it boils down to this: Some stocks have gotten crushed, but the market overall has barely been dented – though the fundamentals are rotten, shares are still ludicrously overpriced, enthusiasm is still exuberant except on bad days, and blind faith in annually rising stock prices still reigns. And the fact that stocks like Tesla [TSLA] or Netflix continue to levitate beyond all reality shows that this downturn has a long way, and years, to go.

And Chris Martenson expressed similar sentiments in his most recent article…

The recent market weakness seen over the past two weeks is nothing compared to what’s in store.  As we’ve been carefully chronicling, bubbles burst from ‘the outside in’, starting at the weaker places at the periphery before progressing to the center.

Emerging market equities are now down -26% from their January highs and -18% year-to-date.  China’s stock market is down -32%, even with substantial intervention by the government to prop things up.

The periphery has been weakening all year, and the contagion has now spead worldwide.

But when I talk about a “perfect storm”, I am not just talking about money.

For years, I have been warning that the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted on a daily basis is rapidly disappearing, and the events of this past week made this exceedingly clear…

Wednesday, a white man with a history of violence shot and killed two African-Americans, seemingly at random, at a Kentucky Kroger store following a failed attempt to barge into a black church.

After mail bombs were being sent to people who’d been criticized by the President, a suspect was arrested Friday — a man who had railed against Democrats and minorities with hate-filled messages online.

And Saturday morning, a man shouting anti-Semitic slurs opened fire at a Pittsburgh synagogue, killing 11 people attending Jewish services.

I will not ever be able to understand the kind of hate that we have been witnessing.  I have always preached against racism, and I even included an entire chapter against racism in my latest book.  There is absolutely no room for racism in America, but it just seems to keep growing.

We are facing overwhelming challenges as a society, and if we do not learn how to love one another there is no way that we are going to make it.

This is a time of great governmental shaking as well.  On November 6th, some candidates will win and some candidates will lose, but the hatred being expressed on both sides will not go away.  Sadly, the truth is that there are corrupt politicians all around us, and the American people have been rapidly losing faith in our system.  If the corruption is not cleaned up and some way is found to restore faith in our system of government, it is only a matter of time before it collapses.

On top of everything else, we also live at a time of impending global conflict.  A major regional war could erupt in the Middle East at any time, and Russia and China are openly warning that they are “preparing for war” with the United States.  World War 3 is a lot closer than people realize, and the fact that our relationships with both Russia and China are rapidly going downhill is a major concern.

And of course the planet itself is increasingly becoming unstable.  Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions appear to be growing in both size and intensity, and massive storms have been hammering communities all over the globe in recent months.

The giant rock that we all live on is rapidly changing, and many believe that the Earth changes that we are currently witnessing are going to escalate dramatically in the years ahead.

Many ordinary Americans seem unconcerned about everything that is going on, and perhaps that is because they are unaware of the bigger picture.  But the elite are definitely freaking out.  In fact, the New York Times just published an article about how demand for private security services is higher than ever…

At Pinkerton, a private security and detective agency founded in 1850, requests for executive security have increased 20 to 30 percent annually over the last five years, said its vice chairman, Tim Williams. And people are looking for safeguards in all areas of their lives that pose risks, experts say, including information technology and social media.

“People are scared right now,” Mr. Williams said.

And some among the elite even have plans to hop on private jets and leave the country completely when everything starts hitting the fan.  For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “Bankers And Tech Executives Know The Collapse Of Society Is Coming And Are Feverishly Prepping For It”.

We are entering a time that will cause many to have great fear, but now is not a time to be scared.

It is when times are the darkest that light is needed the most, and I believe that this coming “perfect storm” will be an absolutely thrilling time to be alive.

Yes, life is going to become a lot more uncomfortable for all of us, but it is during times of great challenge that we find out what is truly inside of us.  This will be a time when some will show that they are great villains, but many will also emerge as great heroes.

We have reached a critical juncture in human history, and everything is about to change.  I would encourage you to be a light in the darkness, because that is going to be greatly needed in the days ahead.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

The Last Days Warrior Summit is the premier online event of 2018 for Christians, Conservatives and Patriots.  It is a premium members-only international event that will empower and equip you with the knowledge and tools that you need as global events begin to escalate dramatically.  The speaker list includes Michael Snyder, Mike Adams, Dave Daubenmire, Ray Gano, Dr. Daniel Daves, Gary Kah, Justus Knight, Doug Krieger, Lyn Leahz, Laura Maxwell and many more. Full summit access will begin on October 25th, and if you would like to register for this unprecedented event you can do so right here.

A Record 7 Named Storms Are Swirling Across The Globe – Has ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ Arrived?

Is something extremely unusual happening to our planet?  At this moment, Hurricane Florence is just one of seven named storms that are currently circling the globe.  That matches the all-time record, and it looks like that record will be broken very shortly as a couple more storms continue to develop.  Back in 2004, a Hollywood blockbuster entitled “The Day After Tomorrow” depicted a world in which weather patterns had gone mad.  One of the most impressive scenes showed nearly the entire planet covered by hurricane-type storms all at once.  Of course things are not nearly as bad as in that film, but during this hurricane season we have definitely seen a very unusual number of hurricanes and typhoons develop.  As our planet continues to change, could this become “the new normal”?

As I mentioned above there are currently seven named storms that are active, but an eighth is about to join them, and that would break the all-time record…

The Hurricane season is causing devastation from the Pacific to the Atlantic as seven active storms are currently swirling across the globe – with high chances an eighth powerful storm will soon develop to break an all-time record.

And actually there is an additional storm that is also developing in the Pacific which could bring the grand total to nine.

Overall, there have been 9 named storms in the Atlantic and 15 names storms in the Pacific since the official start of the hurricane season.

That is not normal.

In fact, one veteran meteorologist has said that he has “NEVER seen so much activity in the tropics”…

Far from being the biggest threat facing the US coastline this hurricane season, Florence will be followed by several other storms that rapidly strengthening in the Atlantic. As one veteran meteorologist remarked, “in my 35 years forecasting the weather on TV, I have NEVER seen so much activity in the tropics all at the same time.”

Meanwhile, the biggest storm on the planet is actually in the Pacific Ocean.

Super Typhoon Mangku is a Category 5 hurricane, and it absolutely dwarfs Hurricane Florence…

The devastating force of Hurricane Florence is nothing when compared to the category 5 hurricane sweeping over the Pacific Ocean, Super Typhoon Mangkhu.

With winds close to 180mph, the fierce hurricane is feared to land over a mountainous terrain in the northern Philippines on Friday night, before moving over the South China Sea and potentially impacting Hong Kong and Vietnam.

But let’s not minimize the seriousness of Hurricane Florence.  It is currently approximately the size of the state of Michigan, and even though it has been downgraded forecasters are still predicting that it will bring up to 40 inches of rain in some areas.

One meteorologist ran the numbers, and he determined that if the current forecasts are accurate the state of North Carolina could end up getting ten trillion gallons of rain…

Weather.us meteorologist Ryan Maue crunched some numbers and tweeted that North Carolina’s 7-day rainfall forecast by the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center would be like getting “a total of over 10 trillion gallons” of rain from Florence. The math was based on the projected state average of 10.1 inches of rainfall for that time span.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Ten trillion gallons of rain.

Needless to say, all of that water is going to cause an immense amount of damage.

Over in Virginia, a top official is warning that “there could be a number of dams that will fail”…

In neighboring Virginia, officials with the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation have identified some 100 dams they are concerned could be at risk, either because of “spotty inspection records” or because they are still being built.

“If we get 20 inches of rain in a relatively short period of time,” Russ Baxter, the department’s deputy director told the WSJ, “there could be a number of dams that will fail.”

As I write this article, some areas along the coast are already getting hammered.  Atlantic Beach has received more than 12 inches of rain, and other towns are already inundated with water.

It is going to be a long couple of days for those living along the Mid-Atlantic coast, and there were reports of panic among those making last-minute preparations…

A rowdy crowd was shown in a Facebook video shared by an employee from the supermarket off Glenn School Road in Durham Tuesday pushing one another and shouting as they hurried around the store to gather their supplies.

Police officers were even spotted making their rounds around the Walmart to ensure the safety of shoppers.

One officer is seen restraining a young boy as another shopper drops several bottles of water.

This is yet another example that shows that you never wait until the last minute to get what you need.

In the end, the damage to property will be in the tens of billions of dollars, but only a handful of people will probably lose their lives.

Now that the storm has been downgraded, some are even booking rooms along the coast so that they can say that they rode the storm out.

For instance, 53-year-old Barry Freed says that he is sticking around so that he can cross this off his “bucket list”…

For Barry Freed, 53, riding out a hurricane was a chance to cross something off his “bucket list.”

Armed with a few sodas, some M&Ms, Doritos and a copy of Moby Dick, the Greensboro resident booked an AirBnB at a condo here.

As skies darkened Thursday and winds whipped up at Waterway Lodge, just off the marina near Wrightsville Beach, Freed admitted he wasn’t really prepared.

“I kind of thought of this impulsively,” he said. “It’s kind of a stupid idea.”

Yes, it probably is a stupid idea, but I admire his courage.

This storm will come and go, and the recovery will take an extended period of time.

But the much bigger story is what is happening to our planet on a larger scale.  These storms are increasing in number and intensity, and that should definitely alarm all of us.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

“I’ve Never Seen Anything Like This”: Meteorologists Expect Florence To Stall And Hammer The East Coast “For Days”

The bizarre story of Hurricane Florence just keeps becoming even more strange.  The good news is that meteorologists are telling us that the storm is expected to lose intensity as it approaches the east coast, but the really, really bad news is that it is now being projected that Florence will slow down and finally stall just off the coastline.  In a worst-case scenario, the Carolinas and Georgia could be pounded with wind and rain “for days”, and some areas of North Carolina could end up being buried under nine feet of water.  And even though the peak wind speed of Florence has diminished some, the storm just continues to expand in size.  That means that it will ultimately hit a larger portion of the east coast than originally anticipated, and the overall economic cost will also ultimately be worse than the experts were forecasting.

The word “unprecedented” is being used a lot in conjunction with this storm.  It is behaving in ways that it shouldn’t be, and this “strange stall” along the east coast is absolutely baffling the experts.

While discussing this “stall”, Weather Channel meteorologist Greg Postel stated that he had “never seen anything like this”…

The weird saga of Hurricane Florence, which has already carved an unprecedented path across the Atlantic, is forecast to persist with a strange stall and trek along the Southeast coast.

Instead of roaring ashore and quickly heading inland and weakening, as most storms do, Hurricane Florence should instead “stall near the coast and then parallel southwestward toward Georgia,” Weather Channel meteorologist Greg Postel said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

And don’t let the fact that Hurricane Florence has been downgraded from a Category 4 storm fool you.  The wind speed may be down a bit, but the storm just keeps getting larger, and on Wednesday it was producing waves that were up to 83 feet tall.

If this storm really does stall off of the Carolina coastline, the devastation will be off the charts.  The following comes from CNN…

Florence’s predicted slow southward turn on Friday would mean some coastal areas could get damaging hurricane-force winds for more than 24 hours. “If this blows at 120 mph for four hours, … you lose a shingle every two minutes, and all of the sudden, you’ve lost your whole roof after four hours,” CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said.

In addition to extreme wind damage, we could also see unprecedented rainfall totals and flooding…

While it sits and spins, the heavy rain Florence unleashes will lead to “catastrophic” and “life-threatening” flooding in the Carolinas. Widespread reports of 20 to 30 inches of rain are likely, and some spots could see 40 inches.

As if that weren’t enough “isolated tornadoes will become a threat Thursday along the North Carolina coast,” the National Weather Service in Wilmington said.

Could you imagine getting 40 inches of rain in a 24 hour period?

And what will things look like if Hurricane Florence decides to stall for an extended period of time and stay roughly in one place for several days?

We don’t know exactly what the storm will do following the “stall”, but what we do know is that the damage from this storm will be immense.

In fact, one FEMA official is warning that power could be knocked out for many people in the danger area for “weeks”…

“This one really scares me,” National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham told CBS.

“This storm is going to knock out power days into weeks. It’s going to destroy infrastructure. It’s going to destroy homes,” said Jeff Byard, an official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

If you live in the path of this storm, hopefully you have evacuated already.

If you haven’t evacuated, hopefully you have stocked up on supplies, because most of the stores have already been completely cleaned out.  At this point, even gasoline is in very short supply…

Michelle Stober loaded up valuables on Tuesday at her home on Wrightsville Beach to drive back to her primary residence in Cary, North Carolina. Finding fuel for the journey was tough.

“This morning I drove around for an hour looking for gas in Cary. Everyone was sold out,” she said.

And remember, this is just a temporary emergency.  Eventually this storm will pass and the region will begin to recover.

In the event of an even worse emergency that is more long-term in nature, what will you do when all of the supplies are gone and the stores aren’t going to get anything else for the foreseeable future?

On another note, many have found it very interesting that federal officials held a major exercise in which they simulated a Category 4 hurricane slamming into the Mid-Atlantic region back in late April and early May.  Representatives from 91 different federal departments and agencies took part in this exercise, and the results of the exercise were quite alarming…

Just months ago, disaster planners simulated a Category 4 hurricane strike alarmingly similar to the real-world scenario now unfolding on a dangerously vulnerable stretch of the East Coast.

A fictional ‘Hurricane Cora’ barreled into southeast Virginia and up the Chesapeake Bay to strike Washington, D.C., in the narrative created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Argonne National Laboratory.

The result was catastrophic damage, which has some experts concerned that Hurricane Florence could produce a disaster comparable to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina and in a part of the country that is famously difficult to evacuate.

It is important to remember that Hurricane Katrina was only a Category 3 hurricane when it finally made landfall.  But it was such a massive storm that it absolutely overwhelmed New Orleans.

We could be facing a similar scenario this time around.  Hurricane Florence may only be a Category 2 or a Category 3 hurricane when it finally makes landfall, but it looks like it is going to do an unprecedented amount of damage.

So please be in prayer for those living along the Mid-Atlantic coast, because this may end up being the worst storm that they have ever experienced.

This article originally appeared on The Economic Collapse Blog.  About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

People Are “Fighting For Food” As Authorities Warn Florence “Could Produce A Disaster Comparable” To Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Florence is about to make a “direct hit” on the east coast, and public officials are making one ominous declaration about this storm after another.  Florence is being called “extremely dangerous”, “a monster”, “the worst in 60 years” and “the storm of a lifetime”.  By the end of this week we shall see if this storm lives up to the hype, but at this point it is definitely an immensely powerful storm.  Hurricanes of this magnitude very rarely come this far north, and panic is starting to set in all across the mid-Atlantic region as people realize that this is really happening.  Over a million people are in the process of evacuating, and it is being reported that there is “fighting for food” at the stores that still have some supplies left…

“It was chaotic! Oh my goodness, long lines!” said Fatimah Spivey.

Reilly Norman described it as “a mess in there; it’s wiped out clean.”

The water aisles were especially bare — empty shelf after empty shelf.

“We came around 1 and all the waters were gone,” said Blake Swain. “Now, it’s just people fighting for food.”

Interestingly, federal officials actually conducted a “simulation” that involved a category 4 hurricane hitting the mid-Atlantic region back in late April and early May…

Just months ago, disaster planners simulated a Category 4 hurricane strike alarmingly similar to the real-word scenario now unfolding on a dangerously vulnerable stretch of the East Coast.

That “simulation” produced “catastrophic damage” along the east coast, and as a result some experts are now concerned “that Hurricane Florence could produce a disaster comparable to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina“…

A fictional “Hurricane Cora” barreled into southeast Virginia and up the Chesapeake Bay to strike Washington, D.C., in the narrative created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Argonne National Laboratory.

The result was catastrophic damage, which has some experts concerned that Hurricane Florence could produce a disaster comparable to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina and in a part of the country that is famously difficult to evacuate.

Let us hope that does not happen, because New Orleans still has not fully recovered from Hurricane Katrina after all this time.

But at this point things look very grim.  The computer models are predicting a storm surge of somewhere around 20 feet and up to 45 inches of rain in some parts of North Carolina.

In addition, it is being projected that the insurance industry could be facing up to 20 billion dollars in losses.

And all of those numbers assume that this will remain a Category 4 storm.  According to CNN, there is still a possibility that Florence “could become close to a Category 5 storm” before it slams into the Carolinas…

As of Tuesday morning, Florence was hurling 130-mph winds. Before it pummels the US coastline, Florence could become close to a Category 5 storm — meaning winds could approach 157 mph.

But even a Category 4 storm would be immensely devastating.

A 20 foot storm surge would cause more damage than the wind or the rain from the hurricane would.  It would essentially be a giant “wall of water” that would “swallow parts of the coast”…

“Storm surge has the highest potential to kill the most amount of people,” FEMA Administrator Brock Long said. “It also has the highest potential to cause the most destruction.”

Storm surge is basically a wall of water that could swallow parts of the coast.

“This will have a storm surge in the 20-foot range,” Myers said.

And meteorologists are warning that in a worst-case scenario we could actually see Florence stall along the east coast for an extended period of time.  According to the Weather Underground, this is how that could happen…

The steering currents driving Florence toward the East Coast will collapse on Friday, and models now agree the storm is likely to stall somewhere within 100 miles on either side of the coast, perhaps for one or two days.

The 12Z Tuesday run of the European model introduced a new and very distressing possibility: Florence stalling just offshore of North Carolina near Wilmington for roughly a day, then moving southwestward along and just off the South Carolina coast on Saturday, and finally making landfall close to Savannah, Georgia, on Sunday—all while still a hurricane. This outlandish-seeming prospect gained support from the 18Z run of the GFS model. It painted a very similar picture, with a landfall a bit farther north, near Charleston, on Sunday. The 18Z track from the experimental GFS FV3 model is very similar to the GFS track.

In such a scenario, the damage caused by this storm would be multiplied.

To say that this storm is “dangerous” would be a major understatement.  And let us not forget that there are 12 nuclear power reactors directly in the path of this storm.  If things go bad, they could go really, really bad.

As the storm draws closer to the coast, federal officials are begging people to get prepared…

Federal officials begged residents to put together emergency kits and have a plan on where to go.

“This storm is going to knock out power days into weeks. It’s going to destroy infrastructure. It’s going to destroy homes,” said Jeff Byard, an official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Of course those that have waited until now may find that it is already too late.

Gasoline stations all over the mid-Atlantic are already running out of gas, and store shelves are being “picked clean” of essential supplies…

Long lines formed at service stations, and some started running out of gas as far west as Raleigh, with bright yellow bags, signs or rags placed over the pumps to show they were out of order. Some store shelves were picked clean.

“There’s no water. There’s no juices. There’s no canned goods,” Kristin Harrington said as she shopped at a Walmart in Wilmington.

A “perfect storm” is literally heading for the east coast, and some believe that this could be a metaphor for what is happening to the nation as a whole.

For those of you living in the mid-Atlantic, please get out of the path of this storm, and our prayers are with you.

This article originally appeared on The Economic Collapse Blog.  About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

Hurricane Florence To Intensify “To Near Category 5 Strength” And There Are 12 Nuclear Power Reactors In The Carolinas

The latest forecast is projecting that Hurricane Florence will strengthen “to near category 5 strength” before it makes landfall in the Carolinas, and it is being called “a serious threat to lives and property”.  It is extremely rare for a hurricane of this intensity to come this far north, and one expert is claiming that Florence “has the potential to be the most destructive hurricane we’ve had in modern history for this region.”  At this time, the government is warning of “a life-threatening storm surge” of up to 20 feet or higher, “life-threatening freshwater flooding”, and “damaging hurricane-force winds”.  But there is another factor that not a lot of people are talking about.  There are 12 nuclear power reactors in the Carolinas, including two that are located right along the coast.

According to Google, there are 7 nuclear power reactors in South Carolina…

South Carolina hosts seven operating nuclear power reactors: Catawba Units 1 & 2, Oconee Units 1, 2 & 3, H. B.

And Google says that there are 5 nuclear power reactors in North Carolina…

North Carolina hosts five operating nuclear power reactors: Brunswick Units 1 & 2, McGuire Units 1 & 2, and Shearon Harris Unit 1. These account for nearly 32% of electricity generation in the state.

It is the two reactors at the Brunswick plant that are of the most concern because they sit right along the coast and they are directly in the projected path of the storm.

The following is what Wikipedia has to say about those reactors…

The Brunswick nuclear power plant, named for Brunswick County, North Carolina, covers 1,200 acres (490 ha). The site is adjacent to the town of Southport, North Carolina, and to wetlands and woodlands, and was opened in 1975.

The site contains two General Electric boiling water reactors, which are cooled by water collected from the Cape Fear River and discharged into the Atlantic Ocean.

In a worst case scenario, could we potentially be facing America’s version of Fukushima?

Hurricane Florence greatly intensified on Monday.  This is an excerpt from the very latest NOAA forecast…

1. A life-threatening storm surge is likely along portions of the coastlines of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, and a Storm Surge Watch will likely be issued for some of these areas by Tuesday morning. All interests from South Carolina into the mid-Atlantic region should ensure they have their hurricane plan in place and follow any advice given by local officials.

2. Life-threatening freshwater flooding is likely from a prolonged and exceptionally heavy rainfall event, which may extend inland over the Carolinas and Mid Atlantic for hundreds of miles as Florence is expected to slow down as it approaches the coast and moves inland.

3. Damaging hurricane-force winds are likely along portions of the coasts of South Carolina and North Carolina, and a Hurricane Watch will likely be issued by Tuesday morning. Damaging winds could also spread well inland into portions of the Carolinas and Virginia.

And according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, there is definitely a possibility that Hurricane Florence could still strengthen into a category 5 storm…

Experts weren’t ready to rule out the possibility that Florence could even make landfall as a Category 5 hurricane, a feat never achieved by any recorded storm in the region. Dennis Feltgen, a spokesperson for the National Hurricane Center in Miami, says that reaching Category 5 is “certainly a possibility.” If Florence doesn’t undergo a phenomenon known as an eyewall replacement cycle, which would weaken the storm, it has a chance of reaching the 157-mph boundary line and making history, Feltgen says.

As I mentioned earlier, it is very rare for a storm of this magnitude to make landfall this far north…

Landfalling Category 4 hurricanes are rare in the mainland U.S., with just 24 such landfalls since 1851—an average of one every seven years. (Category 5 landfalls are rarer still, with just three on record). All but three of these 27 landfalls by Cat4s and Cat5s have occurred south of South Carolina’s latitude; thus, Florence will be in very select company if it manages to make landfall at Category 4 strength in North or South Carolina.

We only have a couple of previous storms to go on in order to evaluate how bad the storm surge might be.  Unfortunately, water can pile up to enormous heights in this particular region because the continental shelf “extends out more than 50 miles from shore”…

It’s a good thing that landfalls by such strong hurricanes are rare along the South Carolina and North Carolina coast, since this coastline is extremely vulnerable to high storm surges. Two of these three historical Carolina Category 4 hurricanes generated a storm tide of 18 – 20 feet: Hugo of 1989 and Hazel of 1954. The other storm–Gracie of 1959–did not (it hit at low tide, significantly reducing the coastal flooding). The storm tide is the combination of the storm surge and the normal lunar tide, measured in height above sea level. The National Hurricane Center uses the terminology “height above ground level” when discussing the storm tide, meaning the height the surge plus tide gets above the normal high tide mark.

The high vulnerability of this coastline is because the continental shelf extends out more than 50 miles from shore, creating a large region of shallow water less than 150 feet deep just offshore that forces storm surge waters to pile up to staggering heights.

In a worst case scenario, we could be talking about an unprecedented mountain of water slamming into the Carolina coastline.

In fact, it is being projected that if Hurricane Florence becomes a category 5 storm that we could see a storm surge of up to 33 feet…

WU’s storm surge inundation maps for the U.S. coast, computed using NOAA’s SLOSH model, tell a frightening story. Depending on where its center makes landfall, a mid-strength Category 4 hurricane with 145 mph winds hitting at high tide, in a worst-case scenario, can generate a storm tide in excess of twenty feet above ground level along the entire coast of South Carolina, and along most of the coast of southern North Carolina from the South Carolina border to Morehead City. Many locations could see a higher surge, of up to 27 feet. And a Category 5 storm is much worse: a theoretical peak storm tide of 33 feet is predicted by the SLOSH model for the Intracoastal Waterway north of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. These peak surges occur over a 10 – 40 mile stretch of coast where the right eyewall makes landfall.

Let us hope that does not happen, because it is hard to imagine the immense devastation that such a storm surge would cause.

And remember – the two nuclear power reactors right along the coast at the Brunswick facility are directly in the path of this storm.

As news about the intensity of this storm has spread, “panic prepping” has been happening all over the Carolinas.  The following comes from Zero Hedge…

With memories of the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria still fresh in the minds of US consumers, residents of South and North Carolina are taking zero chances as Hurricane Florence – now a Category 4 storm – barrels toward the eastern seaboard. According to local media reports, store shelves have been cleared of vital supplies like bottled water and food as anxious southerners brace for the worst-case scenario.

Shelves at Wal-Marts in North Carolina and South Carolina had been cleared out by Sunday evening, forcing the stores to frantically restock shelves as residents loaded up on everything from water to plywood to generators, per WGN9. Flashlights and batteries also flew off the shelves.

Of course if people had been prepared ahead of time, they would not have to be scrambling for rapidly disappearing supplies at the stores.

And it is being projected that more than a million people will evacuate from coastal areas by the time that this storm reaches shore…

Hurricane Florence is plowing toward the East Coast as a Category 4 storm with a 500-mile wing span, forcing dire warnings and mandatory evacuations – including the entire coastline of South Carolina and parts of Virginia and North Carolina.

In South Carolina alone, more than 1 million residents and tourists are expected to flee from coastal areas, Gov. Henry McMaster said Monday, vowing that state officials “are not going to gamble” with people’s lives.

This is an extremely dangerous storm, and I strongly urge those that live in the region to play it safe.

You can always replace property, but we only get one chance at this life, and so please do not be reckless with yours.

This article originally appeared on The Economic Collapse Blog.  About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

Earth Changes Accelerate: What Is Causing These Record Heatwaves, Massive “Firenadoes”, Giant Dust Storms And Large Earthquakes?

Major changes are happening to our planet, and the experts are groping for answers.  In recent days some have suggested that what we are witnessing is the natural progression of “man-made climate change”, but that explanation has generally been received with a lot of skepticism.  Something truly dramatic appears to be happening to the globe, and it isn’t just because the amount of carbon dioxide in the air suddenly reached some sort of magical “tipping point”.  But without a doubt, temperatures are getting warmer.  In July, Death Valley experienced “the hottest month ever recorded on the planet”.  Over in Europe, Saturday was being billed as Europe’s “hottest day ever”, and temperatures in Lisbon, Portugal were expected to top 107 degrees both Saturday and Sunday.  On the other side of the planet, the crippling drought in Australia is devastating farms “like a cancer”, and things are so hot in North Korea that the government has declared “an unprecedented natural disaster”…

This week, the North Korean government called record-high temperatures in the country “an unprecedented natural disaster” and said that country was working together to fight the problem.

An editorial published Thursday in Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling party, highlighted the difficulties that the long stretch of high temperatures would cause for North Korea’s agricultural sector, specifically crops such as rice and maize. The newspaper called for North Koreans to act as one and “display their patriotic zeal in the ongoing campaign for preventing damage by high temperature.”

In California, extreme heat and bone dry conditions continue to fuel some of the worst wildfires in the history of the state…

Crews battling deadly Northern California wildfires prepare for another day of hot and dry conditions that could drive the flames into new areas and threaten more homes.

According to Cal Fire, more than 15,000 personnel are on the lines of 18 large blazes across California on Saturday. So far, the fires since June have killed 8, burned more than 559,000 acres and damaged or destroyed over 1,800 structures. Roughly 17,000 homes continue to be threatened by these fires, and about 45,000 residents are under evacuation.

Ultimately, this may turn out to be the worst year for wildfires that California has ever seen.

Of course there have been bad years for wildfires before.  But what we haven’t seen before are “firenadoes” that pack 143 mph winds…

On Thursday, NWS researcher combed through the wreckage left behind and determined a fire whirl — commonly known as a fire tornado — roared through the area between 7:30 p.m and 8 p.m. on July 26th.

It was packing 143 mph winds, turning heavy-duty high tension power line towers into twisted pieces of metal, uprooting trees and ripping the bark off other trees.

When I first heard about this fire tornado, I was absolutely stunned.

I had never heard of a fire tornado anywhere near that size in the United States, and apparently the experts hadn’t either…

“This is historic in the U.S.,” Craig Clements, director of San Jose State University’s Fire Weather Research Laboratory, told BuzzFeed News. “This might be the strongest fire-induced tornado-like circulation ever recorded.”

Known as a pyrocumulus cloud, the ominous red weather formations usually occur over volcanic eruptions or forest fires when intensely heated air triggers an upward motion that pushes smoke and water vapor to rapidly rise. They can develop their own weather patters, including thunderstorms with severe winds which then further fan the flames.

Elsewhere in the Southwest, drought continues to intensify, and this is starting to produce absolutely enormous dust storms.

For example, check out what just happened to the city of Phoenix…

A huge wall of dust enveloped the Phoenix metro area on Thursday in the second monsoon storm in a four-day span.

Officials at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport said flights were delayed or held until visibility improved.

National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologists said blowing dust in the Phoenix area brought near-zero visibility for drivers Thursday evening.

Certainly a dust storm is less destructive than a “fire tornado” in the short-term, but as we saw in the 1930s, a consistent pattern of giant dust storms can absolutely cripple a nation.

And let us not forget all of the shaking that has been happening to the crust of our planet.

On Sunday, Indonesia was shaken by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake…

The death toll rose to 82 after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake rocked the Indonesian island of Lombok and on nearby Bali on Sunday, damaging buildings, sending terrified residents and tourists running into the streets and triggering a brief tsunami warning.

Social media posts from the scene showed debris piled on streets and sidewalks. Hospital patients, many still in their beds, were rolled out onto streets as a safeguard against structural damage to the hospital buildings.

So why is all of this happening?

Yes, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air is increasing, and it has been increasing for a very long time.  Ultimately, the amount that humans contribute to the overall level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is marginal, and even if we took the most extreme measures possible there is very little that we could do to significantly affect the balance.

And scientists assure us that our planet once had much, much higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the air then we do today, and our planet appeared to have thrived under those conditions.

But the narrative won’t change.  The mainstream media will continue to tell us that the Earth changes that we are witnessing are due to global warming and that if we reverse course that we can go back to how things were before.

No, we can’t go back, because the changes that are happening are way outside of our control.

Fundamental changes are happening to our planet, and this is just the beginning.  For now these Earth changes are a minor nuisance to a lot of people, but pretty soon nobody will be able to ignore them.

Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

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