I have a question for you. What's the biggest crime that has occurred and is ongoing, a crime so immense it demands media attention? Russiagate? Seth Rich's murder and/or cover up? Donald Trump doing stupid stuff every damn day? No. It's the mass murder of life on this planet.

Scientists count just five mass extinctions in an unimaginably long expanse of 450 million years, but they warn we may well be entering a sixth. According to a bold new paper in The Anthropocene Review, this time would be different from past mass extinctions in four crucial ways – and all of these stem from the impact of a single species that arrived on the scene just 200,000 years ago: Homo sapiens.

That's right, we human beings are the reason that millions of species, including our own, are at risk of becoming extinct. And climate change, caused in large part by our use of fossil fuels, is the single largest reason for these deaths.

Greenhouse gases from human activities are the most significant driver of observed climate change since the mid-20th century. [...] Worldwide, net emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities increased by 35 percent from 1990 to 2010. Emissions of carbon dioxide, which account for about three-fourths of total emissions, increased by 42 percent over this period.

Indeed, the use of this outdated technology to generate energy have created feedback loops, that are accelerating the release of greenhouse gases in the Arctic, and thus accelerating the rate at which the earth's oceans and atmosphere are warming to a extremely dangerous extent.

The Alaskan tundra is warming so quickly it has become a net emitter of carbon dioxide ahead of schedule, a new study finds. Since CO2 is the primary heat-trapping greenhouse gas — and since the permafrost contains twice as much carbon as the atmosphere does today — this means a vicious cycle has begun that will speed up global warming. “Because it’s getting warmer, there’s more CO2 coming out which means it’s going to get warmer which means there’s more CO2 coming out,” explained Harvard researcher and lead author Roisin Commane. [...] The study is the first to report that a major portion of the Arctic is a net source of heat-trapping emissions. As a result, Commane warns that our current climate models need to be updated: “We’re seeing this much earlier than we thought we would see it.”

And our world governments' reaction to this news? An increase in the extraction and use of coal, oil and natural gas in the United States, and around the world. Why? Because billions of dollars of profits and millions of dollars of bribes/political contributions are at stake.

Indeed, we are fighting wars in the middle east right now to preserve our access to the fossil fuels in those countries.

Although the threat of "resource wars" over possession of oil reserves is often exaggerated, the sum total of the political effects generated by the oil industry makes oil a leading cause of war. Between one-quarter and one-half of interstate wars since 1973 have been connected to one or more oil-related causal mechanisms. No other commodity has had such an impact on international security.

Millions of people have died or suffered grievous injuries and become refugees so that the oil companies and their partners, the totalitarian regimes in Saudi Arabia and dictators throughout the world, can make untold and outrageous profits at the expense of the people not only living in the region, but also people who are directly affected by the change to our climate.

People who are suffering from wars fought over oil, famine, disease, severe weather events such as droughts and extreme precipitation events and massive wildfires. Millions have had their lives ruined. And this is because of our species addiction to the greatest weapon of mass destruction in history: fossil fuels.

And who are the people most responsible for these crimes against life? Our political leaders, and in particular our political leaders in the United States, regardless of major party affiliation, Republican or Democrat. While some have paid lip service to "solving" the climate killing catastrophe that humanity faces, their action indicate they support increased extraction of fossil fuels. Prime examples? Hillary Clinton who promoted fracking for methane around the world to support transnational oil and gas companies, and President Barrack Obama, who presided over the largest increase on drilling for oil and gas in US history.

So, millions dead, more millions at risk, and a state of constant war over old and gas resources the burning of which threatens our very survival. Yet the media ignores these crimes, the deaths of the largely anonymous victims of our corrupt political leaders and major oil companies. Big media titans also are to blame. For example, The New York Times, has even added a climate change denier as a columnist to publish lies on their op-ed page while the world burns.

Both parties receive massive donations from lobbyists for major fossil fuel companies. And our ever concentrated corporate controlled media, who rely on ads from oil and gas companies, continues to distract us with trivial stories that are pure political theater, rather than cover the greatest crisis mankind has ever faced to any significant degree. And that deliberate refusal to cover this story is a crime in itself.

In 2016, the major networks’ coverage of climate change dropped by two thirds compared to 2015. In fact, climate coverage last year was close to its lowest levels since 2009, according to a new analysis by MediaMatters of the evening and Sunday news programs that air on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox. This drop is despite historic wildfires, extreme weather events like Hurricane Matthew, and month after month of record-breaking global temperatures.

My heart goes out to the family of Seth Rich, a young man who was born the same year as my own son. I cannot begin to imagine what they are going through.

But how many other people, both in the United States and abroad have suffered and died because our government is owned by corporations and financial institutions with a vested interest in the continued production and use of oil and gas and coal? People whose lives we will never know. People about whose whose fate our government's leaders couldn't care less, regardless of what they say for public consumption. People whose deaths have been ignored and dismissed as the "cost of doing business." People of all races, religions and nationalities.

So spare me the ADD hyped, 24/7 media focus on stories such as the murder of Seth Rich and the alleged "treason" of Donald Trump. We have far bigger concerns and face a far greater threat to our nation's security and to the security of people around the world. I don't have time for the Kabuki plays the media and corrupt governments around the world broadcast as infotainment, while the far greater danger to human beings posed by anthropogenic climate disruption, which they would just as soon we ignore, continues unabated and unaddressed.