“But the nations became wrathful, and your own wrath came, and the appointed time for the dead to be judged, and to give their reward to your slaves the prophets and to the holy ones and to those fearing your name, the small and the great, and to bring to ruin those ruining the earth.” (Revelation 11:18) From 1914 onward the nations of the world have fiercely expressed their wrath against one another, against God’s Kingdom, and especially against Jehovah’s two witnesses.​—Revelation 11:3.

9. How have the nations been ruining the earth, and what has God determined to do about it?

⁹ Throughout history the nations have been ruining the earth by their incessant warfare and bad management. Since 1914, however, this ruination has escalated to an alarming degree. Greed and corruption have resulted in expanding deserts and tremendous loss of productive land. Acid rain and radioactive clouds have damaged large areas. Food sources have been polluted. The air we breathe and the water we drink are contaminated. Industrial wastes threaten life on land and in the sea. At one time, the superpowers threatened complete ruination by way of nuclear annihilation of all humankind.

[Box on page 175]

Ruining the Earth

“Every three seconds a portion of original rainforest the size of a football field disappears. . . . The loss of primary forest is destroying thousands of plant and animal species.”​—Illustrated Atlas of the World (Rand McNally).

“In two centuries of settlement, [the Great Lakes] have also become the world’s biggest sewer.”​—The Globe and Mail (Canada).

In April 1986 an explosion and fire at a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, U.S.S.R., “was the most significant nuclear event . . . since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” emitting “as much long-term radiation into the world’s air, topsoil and water as all the nuclear tests and bombs ever exploded.”​—JAMA; The New York Times.

In Minamata, Japan, a chemical plant discharged methylmercury into the bay. Eating fish and shellfish contaminated with the discharge caused Minamata disease (MD) a “chronic neurological disease. . . . To date [1985], 2578 people throughout Japan have officially been verified to have MD.”​—International Journal of Epidemiology.