If the snow were to go and the ice began to flow, are we heading for paradise or the inferno? This question is not as rhetorical as it looks, and far from wishing to dampen the warm glow of seasonal sentiment, is intended as a prayer flag offered to appease the lords of fire and fury.
These guys don't wait on an invite with RSVP, they're much more likely to burst in unannounced, devouring great swathes of forest, while their allies and enemies–lords of the flood and rising oceans–lick away islands, however rich or poor, engulf populations and nations, submerge all our follies beneath the angry waters.
Meteorologists and climatologists are already predicting 2014 will go down in weather history as the hottest year ever in recorded history. The unavoidable conclusion is that it is human activity, which is driving us all to the point of universal conflagration or the kind of flood only Noah is able with.
Imagine a world of boat people; alternatively, imagine an ashen landscape, smouldering below the orange sky.
Ignoring climate change is ostrich walk: head in the clouds or down a hole. Even in blessed T&T over the last couple of decades we've all noticed the disruption of the two seasons, with intense heat and flash flooding as regular features.
While big boys China and America lead the field globally in carbon emissions, sweet little T&T or rather industrialised Trinidad, is way in front in the Caribbean.
Besides all the hot air which rises daily from parliament to parlour, we continue like marauding bachacs to scythe down our forests, strip away topsoil, gauge out quarries, pollute both fresh and seawater, while ignoring toxic waste we pour out from every traffic jam and factory. But we've made a virtue of ignorance, especially when it comes to uncomfortable truths, so that we dismiss environmental evaluations of projected constructions, usually in the name of profit.
The recent flooding of the Mayaro road, the collapse of the shoulder on the new Golconda interlink are only two recent examples of our ability to ignore the obvious; we don't even have to get into the Debe highway extension imbroglio.
If you doubt the negative impact Brother man has on the environment, think no further than Ebola and you'll get the apocalyptic picture.
Cutting down the forest in Congo has driven species of wild animals from their habitats and into contact with humans. Without the deforestation, the Ebola virus may well have been contained in its locus of genesis.
This is fact but if we want to speculate, we could look at an interesting theory about the origins of AIDS.
Descendants of Surinamese Amerindians resettled in Amsterdam after independence told a documentary filmmaker, working on a series on AIDS cities of the world back in the early 1990s, that the pandemic had been known to them for more than a 100 years in their former Amazon rainforest homes.
From plants and tree roots growing in the forest they had developed their own cures, which the documentary film maker subsequently studied and used himself with the unofficial support of the WHO right here in T&T in the mid to late 1990s.
Interestingly the explanation the Amerindians gave for the outbreak of the virus was that it was Mother Earth's response to the trauma inflicted on it by Brother Man–a defensive strike against the destroyer. This may sound far-fetched, but so would talk about giant waves, droughts lasting for years, unprecedented earthquakes and floods of biblical proportions- before they all happened.
The recently concluded UN talks on climate change in Lima, Peru epitomize Brother Man's delusionary nature. We are all prepared to talk and fiddle while Mother Earth fries and floods.
Although agreement has been reached that some serious steps to contain carbon emissions are imperative, the Developed World is still dragging its feet when it comes to providing financial aid to developing nations.
As one NGO spokesperson said: "For developing countries this was no outcome at all. There is no new money to help them adapt to climate impacts or transition to cleaner economies.
There is no assurance that they will be supported in their efforts to deal with loss and damage. And hope is rapidly fading that developed countries will act urgently to reduce their emissions to stop the climate crisis from getting worse."
It is impossible to ignore the imbalance in the relationship of the First with All Other Worlds in the climate crisis.
Just as Ebola has been allowed to spread because it was not perceived as a threat to the First World, so once again the most vulnerable and least capable are left on the periphery to fend for themselves. The view from the mountains in Trinidad is bleak. Time to check out Noah.