Grapes of Wrath

Fish kills? I was cruising around looking for news this morning, and I kept coming across stories about fish kills. Apparently, in many parts of the country dead fish are washing up on riverbanks and beaches wholesale. Here are just a couple of these stories, one from Texas

Thousands of dead fish are washing ashore along the Texas coast from the Colorado River to Galveston Island and Parks and Wildlife biologists suspect low oxygen levels off shore may be to blame.

— and here’s the situation in Iowa

In Iowa, about 58,000 fish died along a 42-mile stretch of the Des Moines River, according to state officials, and the cause of death appeared to be heat. Biologists measured the water at 97 degrees in multiple spots.

If you do a news google for “fish kill” you get recent news stories from all over the country about fish dying in rivers, big and small; ponds, lakes, and oceans. Fish kills are nothing new, but usually they happen more randomly.

OK, one more

In Illinois, heat and lack of rain has dried up a large swath of Aux Sable Creek, the state’s largest habitat for the endangered greater redhorse, a large bottom-feeding fish, said Dan Stephenson, a biologist with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

“We’re talking hundreds of thousands (killed), maybe millions by now,” Stephenson said. “If you’re only talking about game fish, it’s probably in the thousands. But for all fish, it’s probably in the millions if you look statewide.”

And it struck me that if ever a situation deserved a biblical write-up, America in the Age of Global Climate Change is it. Something like,

“And the LORD saw the children of Columbus fouling their green land with many carbon emissions; and He brought forth scientists to preach to the people to change their ways. And some heeded the scientists and the prophet Al Gore and wished to reduce their carbon footprints and develop alternative energies. But many others were deceived by the Koch demons, and they laughed at the prophecy and chanted, drill baby drill. And, verily, the LORD sent a mighty heat wave, and drought, and boiled the fish in the rivers and burned the corn in the fields, and threatened the children of Columbus with rising food prices. Yet the evil children turned up their air conditioners and refused to notice the signs.”

Stuff like this happens over and over again in the Bible. You’d think people who claim to read the Bible would notice the pattern.