While last year's hurricane season made people who reverberate with manifestations of climate change shake their heads at the thunderous weather, we must admit that, despite its destructive force, the weather remained significantly better than that to be found on our placidly windless neighbor, the moon.

Actually, having ascertained better weather than on that silvery disk, we wonder where else in the slightly traveled solar system we might find weather more clement. Unfortunately, we still don't have any options beyond the handful of dreadfully uninviting planets that circumnavigate old sol. Venus is just too darn hot. Mars looks like an overheated Saudi Arabia.

So we have to face reality, whether or not we like the weather. Compared to what else is out there, the climate on our bumptious earth is, through all its tempests and droughts, downright heavenly.