earthInterior Secretary Sally Jewell sounded the alarm yesterday that dangerous political movements threaten public land and water and that we must put a stop to human growth and development.

It sounded like she was saying the ride atop planet Earth has stopped, everybody get off.

What sparked her overly dramatic rhetoric and prompted her to ring the sky-is-falling alarm?

Old white people are the majority of visitors to national parks in the West.

Honestly, we can’t make this stuff up.

Jewell was taking the lead on the National Park Service’s perennial plea for funds, during which they usually just threaten to close down the National Monument in Washington.

This year they are complaining that parks attracted a record number of visitors, but they were mostly all white so they need more money to convince younger, non-white people to enjoy the splendor.

“The majority of visitors to national parks, they look like me,” Jewell said. “Older, and whiter. Which means we haven’t found a way to connect with the young people of today, who are more diverse, more tech savvy and more disconnected from nature than ever before.”

That, along with the “emergence of an extreme movement” that seeks to sell off public lands “for a short term gain to the highest bidder” are cause for concern, she said. Earlier this year, an armed group of protesters took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon and demanded that the federal government cede control of the lands to private ownership.

Actually, that was BLM land, a completely different federal agency with a completely different political agenda, but we’re all digressing here.

The point Jewell seemed to be making, was that Parks never fix the backlog we send them money for and tell them to do, so now it’s grown to $12 billion so they need even more money because of climate change and dangerous political beliefs that public lands belong to the public.

And then there’s this:

“Some experts believe we’re on the brink of the planet’s sixth mass extinction, with humans playing a major role in wiping out species at a rate 53 times greater than normal,” Jewell said.

Looks like we need to make those reservations for a seat on that rocket ship leaving planet Earth.