Is it just me, or is it hot in here?

I keep feeling as though the barrier between Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novels and the evening news has begun to melt.  Like the news story on CBC this week about how whole giant mammoths are emerging, unlocked from the frozen permafrost.  Now, it is true they remain extinct.  They aren't walking out of the permafrost.  But the idea that the permafrost is in a death spiral, as Stephen Leahy put it is pretty scary.

So how does the news get covered?  It is an exciting economic story of the burgeoning market for Mammoth tusk ivory.  There is an environmental "angle"  -- whether the presence of this new ivory means that there is a greater threat of illegal hunting of African elephants for their ivory, pawning it off as Mammoth ivory.

But, what about the story that is about the rapid loss of permafrost?  The positive feedback loops of melting permafrost releasing methane, itself a powerful greenhouse gas, isn't part of the story.

Now we have the National Round Table with a "don't worry, be happy" angle.  As former Vice-Chair of the National Round Table, I have to wonder if John Ibbitson's story in the Globe got it all wrong.  I have not yet read the full report, so I am going on the Globe and Mail story, but what were they thinking??  Losing the Arctic ice has a "silver lining" in being able to drill for more oil and gas to heat up the planet even faster?

Where is the awareness of tipping points?  Points of no return?  Unstoppable warming leading to Stephen Hawking's fear that Earth “could end up like Venus, at 250 degrees centigrade and raining sulphuric acid.”   

Meanwhile, we are so busy drooling over the silver linings, we are ignoring the thunder clouds.