Global warming deniers partly responsible for Aretha Franklin’s cancer, says Stevie Wonder (VIDEO)

The deadly form of pancreatic cancer that killed Aretha Franklin can be attributed at least in part to those who don’t believe in global warming, according to Motown legend Stevie Wonder.

Reminiscing about Franklin’s life and music during an interview with “CBS This Morning,” Wonder suggested that global warming may have played a role in her passing, lamenting that those who deny climate change “don’t believe that what we do affects the world.”

“I just feel that all these various diseases that we have and all that is happening in the world in part is because there are those who don’t believe in global warming, don’t believe that what we do affects the world,” Wonder said. “Heat affects the world and affects us. I just hope that people will grow up out of the foolishness and know that we all, by how we think, how we view, how we treat others, we will never unlock the key until we truly let go of the hatred, the bigotry, the evilness, the selfishness. We do that and we can unlock some of those things that keep us in this place.”

Franklin, 76, died on August 16 from an advanced pancreatic cancer of the neuroendocrine type. 

Wonder has rebuked climate change deniers in the past. The music icon commented during a 2017 telethon for Hurricane relief that “we should begin to love and value our planet – and anyone who believes there is no such thing as global warming must be blind or unintelligent.”

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