I was telling Swamp Rabbit about former VP Al Gore’s recent comments on global warming, which included this one-liner: “Every night the TV news is like taking a nature hike through the Book of Revelation.”

“That’s pretty funny,” Swamp Rabbit said, “but I hope he ain’t turning into one of them crazy end-timers.”

“He was comparing the climate crisis to the goofiest book in the Bible,” I replied. “He was making a joke.”

Gore was a divinity student before he became a politician, I explained. He intones like a preacher but he’s down-to-earth and knows what he’s talking about. Some of the people who used to regard his movie An Inconvenient Truth (2006) as alarmist nonsense have realized, belatedly, that he was right to conclude global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels is changing the world as we know it, and not for the good.

I called up my handy-dandy online Book of Revelation and showed Swamp Rabbit the passages about fires spread by seven-headed dragons, the sky darkened by smoke from the abyss, the cities wiped out by seven angels carrying seven deadly plagues.

“Revelation barely made it into the Bible,” I told him. “Some first-century sci-fi writer must have dreamed it up.”

Swamp Rabbit shrugged. “Give the peeps what they want, right?”

I played “Bad Moon Rising” on my phone and told him the planet might still be saved if we enlighten the hardcore yahoos who think coal is clean and Democrats drink the blood of butchered children to reverse the aging process.

“But we’ll need strong counter-narratives,” I said. “The sort of compelling, science-based stories that Al Gore tells so well.”

Swamp Rabbit chuckled. “I hate to break it to you, Odd Man, but them yahoos like death angels and seven-headed dragons. What they don’t like is Al Gore.”

“They’d better get over that,” I said. “Greece is on fire. Phoenix just had its 24th consecutive day of 110 degree-plus temperatures.”

“Don’t make no difference to them Phoenicians,” he replied, “so long as the air-conditioning still works.”

Footnote: “Bad Moon Rising” might be the most cheerful apocalyptic song ever. REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” is another good one.