I think we need a new term to replace Climate Change. It is too soft. It’s like seeing a forest fire and saying the leaves are changing colors.

We need to call it human-caused planetary death (or something equally as serious). Because really, that’s what we are dealing with. Different then past extinction events, for the first time in our planet’s history there is only one species that is the primary cause of mass extinction, and it’s us, humans! Scientists estimate that we are losing 10,000 – 30,000 species per year! That is insane.

This is much bigger than “climate change” and we need to start acting like it.

The United Nations put out a report showing how desperate the situation is and how if the earth warms by just 2 degrees Celsius parts of the world will be uninhabitable by humans and many other species. The UN isn’t alone. The US Department of Defense has stated that climate change is a national security issue and the recently released US National Climate Assessment issued by 13 federal agencies stated that the planet is warming faster than we have ever experienced in modern history.

Yet we aren’t effectively dealing with human-caused planetary death, because political leaders are making shortsighted decisions that go against everything they are being told by the experts. This would not fly in any other arena. Could you imagine if military experts were advising politicians on how to handle military strategy in a war and the president just said, “yea I don’t think that’s right let’s do it this way, I have a good feeling about it.” NO!

We have a real problem where everyday people and our leaders deny facts and try to equate their “feelings” with facts. I look at climate change deniers no different than I look at flat-earthers. They are both equally uninformed, refuse to accept facts, and base their logic solely on their thoughts and not the work of experts in their respective fields. It’s utterly ridiculous. The difference is, no one gets hurt by the ridiculousness of flat-earthers, we all get hurt if our leaders continue to deny facts.

It’s good that some of the incoming members of Congress are pushing hard for a Green New Deal, but it probably won’t be enough. We need to do more to not only address the issues of human-caused planetary death but also to address this nonsense where people refuse to believe in science…just because.

As someone who works on conflict and atrocities prevention issues, I shudder to think about the future wars that will be fought over fertile land, food, and access to water, and al the lives that will be lost.

We must fix this anti-fact problem before it consumes more areas of our lives and we must address human-caused planetary death before it is too late.