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Article snippet: CLEWISTON, Fla. — Vicious hurricanes all in a row, one having swamped Houston and another about to buzz through Florida after ripping up the Caribbean. Wildfires bursting out all over the West after a season of scorching hot temperatures and years of dryness. And late Thursday night, off the coast of Mexico, a monster of an earthquake. You could be forgiven for thinking apocalyptic thoughts, like the science fiction writer John Scalzi who, surveying the charred and flooded and shaken landscape, declared that this “sure as hell feels like the End Times are getting in a few dress rehearsals right about now.” Or the street corner preacher in Harlem overheard earlier this week ranting about Harvey, Irma and Kim Jong Un, in no particular order. Or the tens of thousands who retweeted this image of golfers playing against a raging inferno of a wildfire in Oregon. And just last month darkness descended on the land as the moon erased the sun. Everyone thought the eclipse was awesome, but now we’re not so sure — for all the recent ruin seems deeply, darkly not coincidental. If you thought that, you would be wrong, of course. As any scientist will tell you, nature doesn’t work that way. Spates of hurricanes, even major ones, are common in late summer and early fall, the height of hurricane season. Especially destructive hurricanes are not unknown either, and climate change may be making more of them. Irma, in size and strength, is near the top of the charts, but not yet off... Link to the full article to read more