To commemorate the 50^th anniversary of Earth Day — a celebration that piqued my interest and deep participation for many years — I would like to honour three of my Earth Day heroes. These are individuals who have spent their lives in outstanding service to the Earth.

Could Nature be warning us through the COVID-19 global pandemic and the ever-escalating global warming emergency to "repent" our over-consuming, over-polluting, and unsustainable lifestyles and livelihoods before we experience a Great Collapse?

Lost in the Covid-19 pandemic news coverage is the current rapidly deteriorating state of the climate, which is more of an emergency than ever. This global threat to our survival is more real than ever. It will not go away by itself, we cannot make it go away, and our leaders, particularly the US Republican Trump government, are denying the threat. They are pouring more gasoline on the global warming fire.  

Why didn’t every American newspaper report this news? It should have made the front-page headlines. This is an enormous American and global — now unavoidable — climate catastrophe in the making.

In April 2020, the journal Science published “Large contribution from anthropogenic warming to an emerging North American megadrought” (by A. Park Williams and colleagues). 

As usual for momentously bad research news on climate disruption, although it was reported, it would not have seen by the average reader as it did not feature under general science news.

At this very late stage of needed fossil fuel reductions, only government-enforced actions to reduce global fossil fuel use to the required 2025 global target levels can save us from a soon-arriving global warming-caused extinction nightmare. 

COVID-19 is giving the world a sobering preview of the pandemics global warming will cause as it exposes us to new, old, and even prehistoric diseases that will be far worse.