If I listen to the doomsdayers, the entirety of the world’s surface will soon be a barren wasteland, or completely underwater.

The portentous nomenclature morphed from global warming to a climate change. We don’t want to offend. Widesweeping winter snowpocalypses, and mild tourist seasons, don’t fit into the ominous Nostradamus prognostication of melting icecaps and burnt earth, scorched and cracked.

A fractured crust of dried mud foreshadows imminent disaster, or is evidence I should be more diligent in washing off my patio after a summer rain.