This is earth's cancer diagnosis; take it seriously

By Kathleen Parker

The Washington Post

PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C. —- A new United Nations report projecting the extinction of one-eighth of all animal and plant species should rattle the cages of any remaining skeptics regarding climate change and the central role humans have played in Earth’s accelerating destruction.

The report is by far the most-depressing and frightening bit of news among an exhausting list of dire predictions and seemingly incessant fire alarms, from threatened increases to U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports and market plunges to North Korea’s missile tests and President Trump’s affronts to the Constitution. Just when you thought you couldn’t take any more.

Finding out that 1 million species face extinction without radical, corrective changes in human behavior is akin to finding out you have a fatal disease. One day you have a thousand problems; the next, you have just one. Nothing in today’s headlines compares to the catastrophic potential posed by climate change and the decimating effects of careless consumerism around the globe.

The four horsemen of the Apocalypse — generally considered to be Conquest, War, Famine and Death — weren’t far off the mark. Today, we might revise the New Testament version to include Plastics, Emissions, Deforestation and Homo sapiens.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/parker-this-is-earths-cancer-diagnosis-take-it-seriously/