Pinpointing a part of progress

What does the progress of humanity mean? If you are familiar much with the writings of Jan Cox, you may remember his observation that life is evolving, and that the job of a real revolutionary (his sometime term for those on the path) is to evolve faster than the overall general progress. This progress, lifting all, is justly called mechanical. Perhaps in a public forum I should add that the source and the destination of this progress is unknown, even, possibly, to one who regularly sees above the crowd. Our point here is what the crowd sees, and how that is evolving. 

So this headline today in the Guardian:

Antarctica :150,000 penguins die after giant iceberg renders colony landlocked

My reaction was a (momentary) wince of grief. It was imaginary, I am not in Antarctica. But this reaction is becoming more common among the components of humanity. This reaction motivates. It may or may not produce immediately visible results. But more commonly experienced this kind of reaction, what mine was, changes the way Humanity as a whole may handle their world. And how do I know it is becoming more common??? 

It was headline in a major newspaper.