Ten Big Stories News Media Ignored:  Some of the biggest news of the past year never went public.  Methane and arctic warming’s global impacts, article 6, at the above link.  Nice menton:

‘Dahr Jamail, writing for Truth-out, notes … A 2013 study, published in Nature, reported that a 50-gigaton “burp” of methane is “highly possible at any time.” As Jamail clarified, “That would be the equivalent of at least 1,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide,” noting that, since 1850, humans have released a total of about 1,475 gigatons in carbon dioxide. A massive, sudden change in methane levels could, in turn, lead to temperature increases of 4 to 6 degrees Celsius in just one or two decades – a rapid rate of climate change to which human agriculture, and ecosystems more generally, could not readily adapt.

Jamail quoted Paul Beckwith, a professor of climatology and meteorology at the University of Ottawa: “Our climate system is in early stages of abrupt climate change that, unchecked, will lead to a temperature rise of 5 to 6 degrees Celsius within a decade or two.” Such changes would have “unprecedented effects” for life on Earth.

A huge story? Apparently not. The major news media have written at length about the geopolitics of the arctic region, but there’s been very little mention of the methane monster.’