Sometimes I find myself wishing that Mother Nature would hurry up and get serious about this global warming thing already.

No, not just because I secretly want to see the human scourge shed off the face of the Earth. (Not today, anyway.)

What I am talking about is the fact that the very things that should be ending to stave off catastrophic climate change—as well as the ongoing sixth mass extinction—are actually increasing.

For example, breeding. Okay, that’s a given, but let’s talk specifics.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, logging the rainforest is not coming to a close in acknowledgement of a warming planet needing all the carbon sequestering (not to mention oxygen—oh yeah, and shade) she can get. Indeed, everywhere I look there’s a fresh new clear-cut, while load after load of precious trees are hauled off in carbon-spewing log trucks to massive ships bound for China.

Now, if timber companies were increasing their “harvest” of evergreens to make way for more fast-growing, deciduous trees like alders or maples that would be one thing. But considering that they routinely use Agent Orange defoliant to kill the natural progression of plants on their “tree farms,” I don’t think they have saving the planet on their minds. Quite the opposite.

As long as there are global warming deniers out there, loggers can continue cutting down the forests like there’s no tomorrow. And anyway, who knows, maybe there won’t be one. I’d call it a self-fulfilling prophecy, but they’re certainly not prophets (profit-makers, maybe).

Another obvious example of an industry that should be calling it quits, but is instead expanding its ruinous ways: Big Oil. While climate scientists are warning us that it’s time to just STOP, Shell has plans to start drilling in the fragile Chukchi Sea (crucial feeding grounds for the grey whales, just south of the Arctic Ocean). Meanwhile, the President is allowing offshore drilling in the Atlantic for the first time.

Perhaps, like the logging companies, the oil barons are seeing the writing on the wall that their days are numbered, so they’re out to get it while they can—before the damned enviros slap them with enough restrictions or regulations to put them out of business for good.

So when I say I wish Nature would show us a sign, I don’t mean another massive hurricane or super typhoon, world record drought or raging inferno. Apparently those aren’t enough to shake some people up and out of their denial-induced torpor. I’m not sure what it’ll take. A total reversal of the jet stream? The icecaps melting and Florida sinking overnight? Spontaneous combustion of the White House?

Whatever it’s gonna be I hope it happens soon, before business as usual makes the whole mess worse than it already is.