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New Year’s resolutions suggest an abstract faith in the future. If we do this thing, we tell ourselves, our 2020 selves will look or act or feel better than our 2019 selves did. There’s an implicit acknowledgment that change is possible and that we are capable of making it happen (though just under half of us won’t hold on to our resolutions through February).
Talking about fighting climate change is a lot like that: Here’s what things look like if nothing changes. But if we reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a little — through the end of February, maybe — what happens? If we reduce them by a lot, what will the world look like and what will it take to make that happen?
At once we’re thinking about the present, modeling the future and thinking about how those models might differ depending on what we decide to do.
Climate change tends to scramble time, defying our sense of an orderly progression. As Robert Macfarlane, the chronicler of nature, climate, and the environment, has said, “We burn Carboniferous-era fossil fuels to melt Pleistocene-era ice to determine Anthropocene future climates.”
In so doing, we accelerate all kinds of phenomena: the melting of polar ice sheets and glaciers; mass die-offs of coral reefs. Of the billions of tons of greenhouse gases we’ve added to the atmosphere, more than half have come in my lifetime, since 1990. We hurl ourselves into the future with increasingly precise models, only to be outpaced by our distortions of nature.
In light of all that, it is easy to feel defeated and powerless. But in the same way that you can imagine a better you, your New Year’s resolution can imagine a better planet, because it’s always possible to do something.
We know what happens if we give up and do nothing: Things only get worse. Currently we are on track for 3 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century. One million species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction over the next few decades. Natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires are already becoming more frequent and stronger. Incremental changes today, like sea-level rise, will be catastrophic by 2100.
Climate change is not a problem that can be solved or mitigated enough by individual behavior, though it is good, important and a place to start. It’s easy to feel defeated after reading a set of facts like the one above and knowing that changes in our own personal habits aren’t enough.
I recognize that this might seem to fly in the face of the very concept of a New Year’s resolution. But it doesn’t, actually.
We can’t fix this alone. We can’t all do everything. But, we can all do one thing. So just pick one thing — whether it’s eating less red meat, or composting, or riding your bike to work, or cleaning up plastic litter in your community, or buying secondhand clothing — and actually do it.
Maybe it will make you think change is possible, or you’ll think, “That wasn’t so hard,” and that maybe you could do another thing. Maybe it will reduce your carbon footprint or cause less pollution.
Maybe it will remind you that the most important change we can make as individuals is to stay focused on all the work that still needs to be done. The work that all of us — particularly companies and countries — need to do together to sidestep catastrophe. The work that we all need to make sure gets done.
I can’t prove any of that, but I can say that it is entirely possible to do one thing, even after February.
The good and the bad of festive fireworks
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REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Fireworks are a spectacular way to celebrate the new year, but they can also give you an environmental hangover: a cloud of nasty pollution that can stick around for hours.
That’s a problem here in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital city.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that New Year’s fireworks have become something of a national sport for Icelanders. Starting Dec. 28, families drive to pop-up stores to stock up on rockets, flares and cake fireworks for the big night.
The cakes — which can fire many shots in sequence — are big sellers, and many bear the names of heroes and heroines from the Icelandic sagas. There is an explosive cake named for Gisli Sursson, an outlaw who was killed in battle after years on the lam, as well as for his wife, Audur Vesteinsdottir, who fought by his side in his final battle. (And one heroine with a cake named in her honor, Aud the Deep-Minded, was supposedly my 30th great-grandmother.)
You can see how all of this might appeal to a country that prizes its Viking heritage.
As midnight nears in Reykjavik, people all over the city bring out bags filled with fireworks, lay them out in the streets and light the fuses. What follows is something like a pyrotechnical bender.
Fireworks explode all around, and you might have a hard time deciding in which direction to look. The colors transform the skyline, and the sounds echo across every street and neighborhood.
Then the smoke starts thickening, sometimes obscuring the show.
How much smoke is there? Remember that volcano, Eyjafjallajokull, whose name you probably can’t pronounce? The one that disrupted European air travel in 2010?
Well, it’s not as big as the ash plume that came from that. But it’s more than enough to be harmful for people with respiratory illnesses and other sensitive groups. In the past, some people have ended up hospitalized.
Last month, my friends at The New York Times wrote an article about air pollution that allowed readers to compare their own cities to others around the world that have some of the dirtiest air. The project noted that, once a year, Reykjavik’s air is very, very bad.
Some Icelanders were not happy with the characterization. “It is very misleading to show Reykjavik as one of the most polluted cities in the world,” one reader wrote.
Well, The Times wasn’t trying to single out Reykjavik as a bad actor. Lots of other places have fireworks pollution, like Germany, where some areas have imposed restrictions on private fireworks displays over concerns about fine dust particles. And in India this fall, the government allowed only eco-friendly fireworks for Diwali.
Fireworks can also affect air quality in the United States on the Fourth of July and in China during Chinese New Year celebrations.
But the fireworks in Iceland are increasingly a topic of discussion. When Saevar Helgi Bragason, a science communicator and author, called for a fireworks ban two years ago, his post on Twitter started a national conversation.
Last month, the Environment Agency of Iceland, which monitors air quality, urged people to use fireworks in moderation. Even so, many Icelanders remain fervent supporters of the fireworks. And perhaps it’s not just because they like looking at them.
Much of the proceeds from fireworks sales go to support volunteer search-and-rescue teams, a cause that is close to many Icelandic hearts. Iceland has no military, just a small Coast Guard, so these volunteer teams carry out many missions. Many Icelanders view them as good Samaritans who deserve the public’s support, a fact that has made restricting fireworks a sensitive issue.
The rescue teams have recently started offering an alternative to the fireworks: People can now support them by paying for the planting of trees.
Happy New Year!
Tatiana Schlossberg was a reporter at The New York Times from 2014 to 2017 and is the author of Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have.
Tryggvi Adalbjornsson is a climate and environmental reporter based in Reykjavik. In 2018, he was a James Reston Reporting Fellow on The New York Times climate desk.
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