Global warming skeptics like to hide behind charts that "prove" that melting ice caps and spreading deserts are part of Earth's cyclical weather pattern. It isn't the result of man's impact on the environment.

There is no equivalent of the global-warming skeptic when it comes to assessing the rapid rate of mammal extinction. For five years, 1,700 scientists in 130 countries compiled evidence of an animal holocaust in the making.

According to the estimates of researchers, one-quarter of the world's 5,487 species of mammals are facing extinction.

The impersonal forces of nature aren't to blame this time. The culprit is a bipedal creature with a large brain and an appetite for destruction. It encroaches on animal habitats with farming, housing and industrial development. It poaches and hunts until nothing is left.

To quote Walt Kelly's beloved "Pogo" comic strip -- "We have met the enemy -- and he is us."

The survey, which was released in Barcelona at the World Conservation Congress this week, is an indictment of humanity itself.

One-third of marine mammals on the planet are on the edge of extinction. One-half of the world's primates are endangered; chimp and gorilla meat is a delicacy in Central Africa. Thirty-six percent of land mammals and 61 percent of marine mammals (whales, seals, dolphins) could be on the critical list when global warming is taken into consideration.

What right do we have to threaten, and perhaps destroy, so many of our fellow creatures? The human race has a lot of soul-searching to do.