Extreme no more?

The Polar extremities have largely seemed an irrelevance to most people in the past; incomprehensible, unpopulated nether regions of no interest but for their wildlife and icy scenery. These days, it's different; climate change makes news every day, and the catastrophe that is now reality at the earth's extremes is making the scientists and now the rest of us, worry. I feel hugely privileged to have seen these worlds beyond the norm, but it's an appalling prospect that these scenes may be historic before very long.