At risk (Image: Alun Anderson)
Gallery: A final warning from the Arctic
WHEN I was a postdoc, I was often short of money and used to earn a little extra cash by telling fortunes using a pack of 15th-century tarot cards. Like other practitioners, I was always praying that one card would not appear. It shows a grinning skeleton carrying a giant scythe standing above a field littered with severed heads. It is card number 13, Death, and few customers reward you generously after they encounter it.
Although I know the card well, I was still surprised when an image…
