Fire and Ice: Frost-il Fuel

A tongue-in-cheek response to Robert Frost's famous, also tongue-in-cheek eschatalogical poem "Fire and Ice," inspired by more depressing news about climate change.

In his original (below), Frost implies it will be either fire or ice (or their corollary human flaws, desire and hate) that will end the world. But looking at the environmental debate and our failure to make change quickly enough to save our own skins, laziness and greed seem just as trenchant.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.


... Or Something Else

Why must it be an either/or?
Forces exist
Beyond the flames or flakes of Frost.
The world might end in flood, or dust.
But if I had to top the list
Of what could leave as deadened husk
This blue world’s lovely skin of green,
I’d go, like Gore,
With gasoline.