Mounting evidence suggests the human race may be rapidly reaching its end, taking much else along with it. Every 24 hours, up to 200 species are being exterminated by humans, ranging from insects to birds. The massive rate of animal extinction, only matched by the “dinosaur asteroid” of about 66 million years ago, is practically unknown to the world’s public.

The planet’s quickening annihilation is vigorously kept secret from global populations by the powers-that-be, the wealthy states, who themselves are primarily culpable for the Anthropocene. That being, the new epoch of human-driven destruction irrevocably altering the earth’s landscapes, whose roots can be traced to the Industrial Revolution starting in Great Britain during the mid-18th century.

While first world nations accelerate towards the cliff’s edge, it is a great irony that those attempting to rescue the world are the indigenous populations. The efforts by indigenous communities to stem the waves of disaster can be seen in countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, Canada, Australia, India, and so on. It includes concerted attempts by them to keep oil in the ground where it should remain, preserving rainforests, wetlands and other precious habitats from corporate-led exploitation. Many examples are borne out of the “backward” peoples trying to shield the planet from the assaults of the “enlightened” ones, with some being killed trying to protect their homelands.

The driving force behind the unprecedented destruction are the multinational corporations and financial institutions, which have accumulated awesome influence and wealth, particularly over the past four decades. It is no coincidence that during this time-span the planet’s deterioration has greatly increased in intensity. Such is the power of corporate and financial centers that they now control much of Western government policy, and have infiltrated mainstream media to an extent that the public have little impact on the information they consume – most of which is blatant propaganda diverted towards “Russian meddling” or “Novichok poisoning”, and on other unimportant issues such as celebrity scandals, isolated crime cases, etc.

The most harmful aspect of the corporate financial ideology is: To gain short-term profits at whatever the cost may be, even if it means performing a central role in driving up carbon emissions, wiping out environments and destroying the prospects of young generations. A successful chief executive will continue seeking profits for the company regardless. If business bosses began acting out of benevolent interests for the planet, they would soon be replaced by others more inclined.

ExxonMobil, the US multinational and world’s largest oil company, was aware in the early 1980s that climate change was becoming a reality. Undeterred, ExxonMobil has for years spent fortunes promoting climate change denial in its ruthless drive to achieve profits and market share – the forbidden term “profits” often relayed to the public under the underhand title of “jobs”. Ongoing propaganda like this has had some effect with fewer Americans (56%) believing in climate change by comparison to Europeans (64%).

One can see again the multinational powers are doing everything they can to push the species over the precipice as quickly as possible. Little of these disturbing facts are reported by establishment and media circles, however, which is revealing in itself. It may come as no great surprise that the climate change denial industry is most powerful in the US, which is to a great extent a business-run society. This is serious in the extreme as America is the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China. Currently, the Donald Trump administration is continuing to dismantle EPA legislation that sought to limit carbon emissions, such as that released from cars and other vehicles like trucks.

This is just one example of the ongoing assaults on the planet directed by Trump’s government, ranging from cuts to climate change research, attacks on animal protection legislation, weakening of regulation on toxic air pollution, the burning of coal and extraction of oil, etc. It is a determined effort to eliminate decent existence for the upcoming generations, in the unscrupulous bid to gain as much wealth as possible.

In many ways, one could argue that the death knell for the human race arrived at the end of World War II, with the unloading of nuclear bombs upon Japanese cities. Since 1945, humans have been living on borrowed time as nuclear upgrading and proliferation has continued apace, increasing the risks of a nuclear Armageddon. Despite the perils, the introduction of atomic weapons was enthusiastically pushed forward by Western figureheads like Franklin D. Roosevelt, his successor Harry Truman, and Winston Churchill. That is, the prominent democratically elected leaders. As Churchill himself later said of the decision to use atomic bombs on Japan, “There was unanimous, automatic, unquestioned agreement around our table”.

In another major irony, Adolf Hitler, one of the most denigrated figures in modern history and chief perpetrator of the Holocaust, had allegedly warned that the creation of nuclear weapons would wipe out all humans, along with plants and animals. Providing some of the insights is SS Lieutenant-Colonel Otto Skorzeny, often regarded as one of Hitler’s “favorite soldiers” and “the most dangerous man in Europe”.

In his extended memoirs published in early 1975, Skorzeny writes that,

“In autumn 1940 Hitler had a long discussion on the subject [nuclear fission] with Dr. Fritz Todt, the armaments minister. Hitler’s opinion never changed: he thought the use of atomic energy for military purposes would mean the end of humanity. We also know today that Hitler read not only the paper that Professor Heisenberg wrote at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in 1942 (on Nuclear Fission and the Construction of the Atomic pile with Uranium…) but also other reports on [nuclear] research conducted prior to 1941”.

Skorzeny further details an alleged private meeting he had with Hitler occurring when,

“In October 1944, after the Budapest operation, I flew once again to Führer Headquarters in East Prussia. Preparations were being made for the Ardennes offensive and Hitler wanted to give me his instructions for Operation Greif… At Führer Headquarters, they told me that Hitler was sick in bed but that he wished to speak with me at once. I am certainly one of the few visitors, if not the only one, whom the Führer received in bed. I found him very changed, emaciated, but as always mentally alert… Spontaneously I began speaking of the rumors about artificial radioactivity and its eventual use as a weapon. Hitler looked at me with feverish, gleaming eyes”.

He reveals that Hitler (allegedly) replied to him,

“Do you know, Skorzeny, if the energy and radioactivity released through nuclear fission were used as a weapon, that would mean the end of our planet? The effects would be frightful. Naturally! Even if the radioactivity were controlled and nuclear fission used as a weapon, the effects would still be horrible. When Dr. Todt was with me, I read that such a device with controlled radioactivity would release energy that would leave behind devastation which could only be compared with the meteors that fell in Arizona, and near Lake Baikal in Siberia. That means every form of life, not only human, but animal and plant life aswell, would be totally extinguished for hundreds of years within a radius of 40 kilometers. That would be the Apocalypse… From strike to counter-strike, humanity would inevitably exterminate itself”.

These alleged statements emanating from the Nazi regime remain to be verified.

Today, the threat of nuclear destruction is rising as the US relentlessly modernizes its weapons program, seemingly tipping the balance further in their favor against the Russians – as Vladimir Putin is surely aware, judging by his public statements in recent times regarding nuclear weapons. According to John Polanyi, the veteran Canadian Nobel Prize winning chemist, the main reason for the growing nuclear threat and imbalance is, “a substantial increase in lethality of US nuclear-armed, submarine-based missiles”. The nuclear standoff between the US and Russia is akin to “a gun dual between armed cowboys – nothing is less stable”. The US modernization seeks to eliminate a Russian deterrent, an aim that could well have been realized.

However, this may all be irrelevant. Were the Russians unable to even retaliate to a US first-strike, the Western superpower would still be annihilated, along with the rest of the world. Environmental scientists discovered the extinction phenomenon of nuclear winter in the early 1980s – which proves that even a limited nuclear war would result in huge levels of soot and smoke blocking out most sunlight, destroying all harvests worldwide, and resulting in near-universal starvation. Less than 100,000 humans would be expected to survive in the years after a nuclear war, out of the current population of 7.6 billion.

There is no evidence that any of these realities have penetrated the conscience of military planners. The means to eliminate these threats lies at our disposal, yet the opposite is occurring in many cases with scarcely a warning coming from establishment or news sectors. It perfectly summarizes the madness of the species.

Shane Quinn is a frequent contributor to Global Research