Longyearbyen, Norway, 2020-
At only 1,000km away from the North Pole, the Norwegian town of Longyearbyen stands at the frontier of climate change. Here, homes constructed on a thawing permafrost balance precariously on unstable foundations, residents are plagued by frequent landslides, and rain – instead of snow – falls in winter. In February 2020 right before the Covid-19 outbreak, my colleague Vanessa Liu and I visited the northernmost town in the world to explore how climate change is affecting everyday life in the Arctic.
