If President Abe Lincoln were alive today on this 50th anniversary of Earth Day, perhaps he would give the following speech (adopted with respect from the Gettysburg Address) in honor of all victims leading up to the 6th Mass Extinction including one million species based on reports by the National Science Foundation and United Nations:

Twelve score and four years ago our founding fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great planetary crisis testing if any nation will survive human destruction of our beloved Mother Earth. Our actions of exploiting God’s treasures and resources is leading to our own destruction. Most recently animal-human contact has unleashed a terrible coronavirus pandemic Covid-19 that has claimed nearly 200,000 lives and 2.5 million illnesses worldwide.

Our actions are causing over one million species to face mass extinction at our own peril. We’ve polluted ocean life and coral reefs with chemicals and plastics, poisoned rivers, land, and air, and now we are altering our climate. Many people ignored the Silent Spring, Population Bomb, and An Inconvenient Truth.

Now humanity must challenge ourselves to quickly work for and not against Nature. We must resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that all United Nations under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that governments of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.