On time and water

Over the next 200 years, we can expect all of the Earth's glaciers to disappear -- unless we act now, says writer Andri Snær Magnason. Telling the story of the Okjökull glacier in Iceland, the first glacier lost to climate change, Magnason explains why we need to start connecting to the future in a more intimate, urgent way in order to stabilize the Earth for generations to come.

Hi, my name is Andri Snær Magnason,

talking from Iceland.

(Water rushing)

In 2019, we had lost our first glacier
to climate change:

the Okjökull, the Ok glacier,

that is not OK anymore.

And in the next 200 years,

we expect all our glaciers
to follow the same path.

This glacier here is one of them:

Sólheimajökull,
in the south coast of Iceland.

(Water rushing)

I wrote a poem for a plaque
that was placed on the mountain

where Okjökull once stood.

It was a letter to the future,

and it says,

"This monument is to acknowledge
that we know what is happening

and what needs to be done.

Only you know if we did it."

My grandparents, they were
glacier explorers at times,

when the glaciers seemed eternal.

They went on a glacial honeymoon
in the year 1956.

For three weeks, they were mapping
and traveling Vatnajökull,

Europe's biggest glacier,

sleeping in tents in extreme temperatures.

And I asked them once, "Weren't you cold?"

And they said, "Cold?

We were just married."

My grandmother just turned 96,

and now we know
that many glaciers will be gone

within the time someone born today
becomes as old as my grandmother is now.

We need to start connecting to the future
in an intimate and urgent way.

My grandmother, she was born
in the year 1924.

And if I have grandchildren,

the people I will love the most in my life
will still be alive in the year 2150.

Because our time is the time
of the people that we know and love,

the time that created us,

and our time is also the time
of the people that we will know and love,

the time that we create.

We can easily span 230 years --

the handshake of generations.

When a scientist says 2100,
we just shrug; we don't feel connected.

But I asked my grandmother,
"Are 100 years a long time or short time?"

And she said, to my surprise,

"It's a short time.

I feel like I was traveling
the glaciers yesterday."

(Water rushing)

So 2100 is not a distant future.

It's basically tomorrow,

because in the mind of those people,

2020 will be yesterday.

And I'm quite sure
that we want them to look at our time

with pride and gratitude,

because we knew what was happening

and we know what needs to be done,

and we actually, eventually,
did the right thing.

Thank you.