Well, it’s the end of the world as we know it. The Independent reports that “ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.”

This one-year ice is highly vulnerable to melting during the summer months and satellite data coming in over recent weeks shows that the rate of melting is faster than last year, when there was an all-time record loss of summer sea ice at the Arctic.

Ah, yes. Last year’s all-time record loss. Who could forget the dramatic time-lapse images of the melting arctic? Those shots were referred to as irrefutable and dramatic new evidence for about a month. Dramatic? Yes. But irrefutable?

By February of this year, record colds had allowed for the reformation of all the arctic ice.

We didn’t hear about it for two reasons. The first — it doesn’t make a good story. The second, more insidious reason is that corporations with their hands in both media and goods and services have sunk billions into green campaigns the success of which depends upon the perennial threat of extinction. So hang on for the next few months as the world ends once more.