Some bits of news are more important than others

For example, this piece on the fact that there has been a 30% reduction in arctic sea ice. One of the scientists in the article says that there is no known natural variation that could account for this reduction.

I want to repeat that: no known natural variation.

My mother in law is one of those that insists that the Earth is an unfriendly place, and that its (allegedly natural) fluctuations have caused massive human die-offs throughout history, which is the easy thing to say if you don't want to take individual responsibility and add to the (hopefully growing) masses of people who are doing what they can to mitigate this impending disaster. I can't see it that way, because to me the planet is the friendliest place possible. Just look at the rest of the solar system by way of comparison- clouds of methane and sulfur, negative temperatures measured in hundreds of degrees Kelvin, and so on. Even Mars, the next step according to a vocal minority of our visionaries, is so challenging just to land robots on that a viable trip for humans is still centuries off.

So here we are on this planetary island fighting with each other and killing off people just because they believe differently than we do, and the whole time all of us are, collectively, in greater danger on a grander scale than any war could accomplish. And we like to think our species is rational.