When I close my eyes, I imagine myself standing in the cemetery on a rainy day in October, the sky glooming above me. I imagine raindrops rolling down as I stretch my arms up, stark against the gray.
When I open them, the sun filters in sharply. It is a clear, blue morning, and light refracts from a blanket of snow on the ground. Snow melts onto my arms and drips off. After a snowy week in Copenhagen, temperatures are expected to rise back up after this weekend. I wonder what late autumns the tree before me has seen, whether they were always this erratic. 

The Danes I’ve met are blunt, and often dryly humorous, about climate change and their dependence on larger countries for gas. Many have poked fun at Danish sustainability initiatives for being greenwashing. Denmark is known globally as an especially sustainable country, to the extent that it can feel like a marketing strategy. Back in October, I went on a class trip to Northern Iceland, where we embarked on a “sustainable” whale-watching that utilized a slower boat to reduce disruption to the whales. This outing sparked a discussion of “ecotourism,” a trend that has risen in popularity across the Arctic. Ultimately, I ended up asking myself whether or not it was wise to promote the idea of sustainable tourism at all–on the one hand, many local economies rely on tourism and it might encourage frequent travelers to reduce their footprint, but on the other, it could encourage even more travel than before, further delaying substantial action on the environmental and social impacts of tourism. Going forward, I may find it more comforting to watch the whales from afar, rather than a few meters away.