Will it blow big time?

I’m watching from afar the news about the impending eruption in Iceland, near the town of

Grindavik and the ever popular Blue Lagoon and its surrounding hotels. All have now been evacuated and the nation waits with bated breath for further developments. Will it blow big time or will it just be another 'tourist eruption' as the last three eruptions? I hiked up to the eruption twice in 2021 but both times there was thick fog and I didn't see much, but my other senses were heightened and I particularly remember the metallic smell of burning lava.

I have only just returned to UK from Iceland last week, but the feeling of being too far away is strong. I devour Icelandic newspaper online and subscribe to VPN so I can watch Icelandic news

It’s a strange feeling being somewhere perfectly okay while longing to be somewhere else. It’s a sense of displacement, a beautifully complex feeling that ebbs and wanes, always growing stronger when something like this happens.

Iceland is a uniquely magical and mysterious place due to the volcanic and geothermal activity just beneath the surface. This powers the relatively clean electricity and heating of the nation, but can also be disruptive and frightening.

I have been thinking about climate change a lot lately and how it is predicted to affect the Icelandic landscape, most dramatically its effect on the Icelandic glaciers who are predicted to be severely diminished or even lost in 200 years time. That isn't a long time in the timeline of the earth, it's a blink of an eye in the history of time.

When the volcanic forcers rear up, it's a reminder of how dramatic and mysterious and magical Iceland is, yet the world continues to destroy it. Icelanders didn’t contribute much to climate change as no fossil fuels or gas is used for energy or heating. If climate change continues at the rate it currently is, the Icelandic landscape of our great-grandchildren will look very different to now and it won't simply be due to volcanic eruptions, but due to human activity and their disregard for the gift of nature that they were given.