Summary / Analysis
“Fire and Ice” compares the standard climate apocalypse debate– do we drift away from the sun, or get pulled into it. But rather than talk literally of fire and ice, he subtly uses the connotation of those words, to compare desire versus avoidance. Will we die off from a failure to communicate with and embrace each other (cold shoulder / ice)? Or will the world end with us fighting over something we all want (passion / fire).
Frost states, he knows enough of desire to vote with those who believe the world will end in pursuit of our wants. He concludes, however, that shutting ourselves off from each other is also a sufficient way to destroy ourselves. The moral is that we need balance and either extreme is the end of us. We need not to entirely indulge, nor isolate ourselves.