As in every era, a key to wealth in the year 2075 was to have a really smart ancestor. And Gramulon Prescott had had a doozy. In 2001, his great-grandfather, Bob Prescott, took one look at George W. Bush's environmental policy and bought the North Pole, vowing to turn it into a vacation resort.

They all laughed as they took his money. But by 2050, the temperature had hit a crisp but comfortable average temperature of 30 degrees, and some of the ice started breaking up. All that extra water from the North and South Poles, of course, made the oceans rise. So Prescott Resorts also received hundreds of gondola drivers, their home port of Venice having been drowned in four extra meters of sea water as well as the resulting tide of that best-known appurtenance to the Adriatic Sea, wet Italian diapers.

The North Pole became a place of romance, while at the same time developing a surprisingly good climate for growing zucchini. That is why, in 2075, the United States moved its seat of government there.

"We'll need more pontoons for the West Wing," said President Ricky Schroeder III, as Chief of Staff Alec Baldwin (no relation) hurriedly took notes. "And are you absolutely certain this area can sustain life? I mean, look around. No mosquitoes."

As the earth had warmed up, mosquitoes had become an increasingly constant part of the landscape. Humidity in various places - especially Washington, D.C. - had gotten to nearly 100 percent on a more-or-less permanent basis, while the ground became chronically dry because the heat caused continuous evaporation.

Mosquitoes clapped their little feelers with joy over this. Mosquito-born diseases such as the West Nile virus already were on the rise during the 1990s.

"It's safe here, sir," Alec Baldwin said. "You'll see on your listening tour with the Eskimos."

"Do we have time for that? Remind me again, when is the end of all life as we know it?"

"Ken and Ron in the Department of Strategy now say it's not until Thursday."

"When will they make up their minds?! They vacillate worse than Senate Pro Tem President Susan Sarandon." (No relation.)

But at just that moment, Ron and Ken were standing in awe as the rotund figure of Gramulon Prescott, the most powerful man in the world, stood in their doorway.

"Mr. Prescott," Ron said, "for no particular reason, I wonder if you could favor us with an extended exposition on how the earth got like this. Was it all George W. Bush's fault for rolling back diesel emissions standards, plowing down trees and presuming that polluters would voluntarily uphold environmental protections, just out of the goodness of their black little hearts?"

"Nah," Prescott said, turning to you, the newspaper reader, and speaking to you directly. "He was just one of the several presidents who did that stuff. By the time he became president, the Environmental Protection Agency was promoting articles such as, 'Greenhouse Effect And Coastal Wetland Policy: How Americans Could Abandon An Area The Size Of Massachusetts At Minimum Cost.'" (by James G. Titus, originally published in Environmental Management, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp 39-58, 1991).

"Also by then, a United Nations panel had already calculated that halting the rise in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases would require an unwieldly 60 to 70 percent reduction in emissions. The government was already giving up. Bush just joined in a little more eagerly than some."

Just then, seven angels blew seven trumpets, and four angels on horseback rode across the earth, their breastplates fiery red, blue and sulfur-yellow. Ken, Ron, Prescott and President Ricky Schroeder III all stood ready to be pulled into the sky. But the horsemen rode on.

They didn't take anybody with them, no one was killed or saved or anything. God apparently had decided to let humanity sit around in its own filth until it maybe someday wised up.

"Whatever," Ken said. "I still say it's going to be Thursday."