I personally obsessed about every nut, bolt and washer in these crazy things.

And then if you're smart enough, it goes on a basket on top of the washer.

These never really caught on either the electric shoe warmer and drier. Never a big seller.

We can therefore imagine what the impact of a drier climate on agriculture is likely to be. Conditions in this vital economic sector will become even more precarious than they currently are.

We know what the impact of periodic droughts have been on the lives of tens of millions of Africans. We can therefore imagine what the impact of a drier climate on agriculture is likely to be.

In some places, particularly the drier places of the globe, the deforestation was so severe, and was followed by such intense grazing, that forests have not been able to grow back. The landscape has been permanently altered.

The expectation that life will continue along familiar lines is being overtaken by anxiety that the shifts underway will mean huge shocks and difficult adjustments in many parts of the world. Experts predict that parts of Southern Africa will suffer hotter, drier weather patterns, as will the northern Maghreb region.

Yet climate change will hit Africa hardest, because it will cripple the continent s vulnerable agricultural sector, on which 70 of the population depends. All estimates of the possible impact of global warming suggest that a large part of the continent will become drier, and that the continent as a whole will experience greater climatic variability.