WTF?

Arctic ice may melt 30 years sooner - World - theage.com.au

The link above, as you can read, is from an Australian Web site. In fairness to America, it isn't a main story there, either; the site's front page is riddled with the same kind of crap you find on every American "news" portal. Yet what the article tells us--that scientists now believe that by 2020 there will be NO ice in the Arctic Ocean during the summer--is on a par with the recent bad news about vanishing bees in terms of portending the end of the world. MSNBC.com, meanwhile, leads with a story about Britney Spears returning to the stage. Which, come to think of it, may also be a sign of the apocalypse.

Look, I know this seems hypocritical appearing just above a prediction about who will go home on American Idol. But shouldn't this kind of NEWS--and that's what it is--make big headlines? Bigger than Britney? Scientists are suggesting that the problem of global warming, which we already knew was bad, may in fact be so bad that the earth will unrecognizable within our lifetime. Haven't a lot of Americans seen An Inconvenient Truth by now? Don't we understand what this kind of news means?

Last week, or maybe the week before, one of MSNBC's top headlines was that the Medicare and Social Security funds were scheduled to last one year longer than previously predicted (2019 and 2041, respectively). That is important, obviously, to the health of our country. But this news could make all of that moot, could mean that when those of you planning to have kids are bouncing grandkids on your knees, you'll be doing so in a world where Bangladesh and the Netherlands and Florida and half of New York City are underwater. And you can hardly find it anywhere!

We're doomed, folks. I know that doesn't sell ads, but you'd think ONE journalistic enterprise in the entire United States would have had the gumption to lead with this on an otherwise slow day.