Desert locusts feeding. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My first question when I read this headline was:

With Passover Approaching, a Plague of Locusts Descends Upon Egypt

“how long before somebody tries to blame this on global warming, today’s universal one-size-fits-all bogeyman?”

The answer is: 30 seconds, as it is already in the article itself.

From The Atlantic Wire, bold mine:

Conflicting reports aside, Moamen insists that the government has everything under control. “Egyptian armed forces and the border guards are attempting to fight the swarm with the means at their disposal,” the agriculture minister said. “I ask the families living in the locust-plagued areas not to burn tires. This does not chase away the locusts, but only causes damage and could ignite large scale fires that would cost in lives.” Also, that smoke isn’t doing Egypt’s grandchildren any favors. Scientists anticipate that, as global warming worsens, plagues like this will also get worse.

Here is the referenced article from Nature:

Global warming may worsen locust swarms

Ancient records link a hotter climate to more damaging infestations.

Jane Qiu

Warmer weather in China has been linked to worse locust outbreaks.Kazuyoshi Nomachi / Science Photo Library

Analysis of Chinese historical records stretching back for over a thousand years show that locust outbreaks are more likely to occur in warmer and drier weather, especially in the country’s northern provinces, researchers say.

“The results are an alarm bell for yet another serious consequence of climate change,” says Ge Quansheng, deputy director of the Beijing-based Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who was not involved with the study.

The findings, by climate researcher Yu Ge and her colleagues at the Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Jiangsu province, are published in the Journal of Geophysical Research¹.

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Of course there were periods of warmer and drier climate in Egypt during the time of the Pharaoh and the plagues, but don’t let that fact get in the way of a good disaster story.

The 10 plagues as they appear in the Bible are listed below with actual articles connecting global warming to the plague item following in parenthesis:

1. Water, which turned to blood and killed all fish and other aquatic life (global warming increases soil erosion due to drought and windswept soil which increases river silt. Aswan High Dam in Egypt is already feeling the effects)
2. Frogs (Exodus 8:1–8:15) (Once it was found that global warming didn’t actually mutate/kill frogs, now it is helping frog populations thanks to less severe winters)
3. Lice (Exodus 8:16–19) (Head lice increase due to warming enhanced lice egg cycle)
4. Flies or ^[5] wild animals (Exodus 8:20–30) (Fly population set to double with global warming)
5. Disease on livestock (Exodus 9:1–7) (Farm Animal Disease to Increase With Climate Change, Scientists Say)
6. Incurable boils (Exodus 9:8–12) (Global Warming: Causing Acne and Other Skin Disorders)
7. Hail and thunder (Exodus 9:13–35) (The latest meme: Extreme weather caused by global warming)
8. Locusts (Exodus 10:1–20) (The article above and from FAO:  Climate change and Desert Locust)
9. Darkness (Exodus 10:21–29) (Darker atmosphere due to soot increases  global warming, but look for a reversal soon, because according to scriptures peer reviewed science, CO2 is the real cause. )
10. Death of the first-born of all Egyptian humans and animals. To be saved, the Israelites had to place the blood of a lamb on the front door of their houses. (Exodus 11, Exodus 12) (Kofi Annan says Global Warming causes 300,000 deaths a year now and Climate Change Deaths Could Total 100 Million By 2030 If World Fails To Act)

I think in the case of global warming and plague #10, the chosen ones will have to nail up a hockey stick over their door so that death passes them over.