Sometimes the most important news is what is not happening.

That comment in a recent article along with the following adaptation (from the French) of a story sent to me by a colleague in Quebec Canada made me reflect on why the global community is not focused and active on pushing for immediate reductions in greenhouse emission.

We don’t see it as affecting us directly today. We know the world is warming at a rate that will cause a radical shift in the way we live in the coming decades, still we don’t act. The question to be asked and for you to answer is when will you? Does it need to hit you personally, to devastate your life and that of those you love?

From the frozen north, now warming at an alarming rate comes this observation by Par Moukmouk le jeudi of the village of Pohenegamouk, not far from Montréal – I pay all credit to his observations.  

I am not alone in giving news about North. The newspapers are full. But why the focus on what happens elsewhere?

In France, Betancourt’s case occupies journalists; here is a change in the law on the census. Yes, there are many fires in Russia and floods in Pakistan, but that’s not going to pay the mortgage, or find the love of my life.

Caribou by tens of thousands are moving slowly in the treeless plain bordering the Arctic Ocean. There were mountains here, but the glaciers have crashed, it remains as soft undulations as small breasts of young women. There is not a single tree as far as the eye. Here, the permafrost layer under a few inches when pushing the moss and grass particularly abundant this year, there are tens of meters of ice mixed with soil of moraine rock crushed as finely as flour by the friction of glaciers.

A caribou walks a bit away to a clump of grass that seems appetizing. Suddenly, he sinks into the ground; he struggles to swim and wants what does widens the pool of mud around him. You hear shouting, call and then nothing, his head sank, he disappeared. The other caribou have pretended not to hear, have had nervous tremors like to hunt mosquitoes too abundant. I think they know that danger is now standing still on the ground may open under their feet and they disappear with no hope of relief. The caribou are pretending not to know.

Our small planet saw the warmest year since we are able to measure temperatures. The boreal forest burns, permafrost melts at high speed releasing billions of tons of methane much more active than the CO2 in the development of the greenhouse effect. The earth opens up beneath our feet.

Because of the current La Nina, next winter will probably be a little colder than average. This will be a good opportunity to burn more oil. The loudmouths on the radio to enjoy laughing doomsayers who talk about global warming. And we’ll pretend not to know.