Winter is coming, game of thrones

In "Game of Thrones" -- the television show in which I play fictional knight Jaime Lannister -- one of the many stunning visual images on regular display is an overwhelmingly massive wall of ice. I know all too well that, were "Game of Thrones" a nonfiction world, that wall of ice would be seriously imperiled by climate change.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

I know this because my second home is in the similarly ice-rich territory of Greenland. My wife is from Uummannaq in the northwest of Greenland, and my two daughters are half Greenlandic. In the considerable time I have spent there, I have seen firsthand the devastating effects of rising temperatures on the delicate ecosystem of the world's largest island.

What happens in Greenland is not usually of primary interest to Americans -- nor anyone else outside of the North Atlantic, for that matter. But it should be. If the Greenland ice sheet -- which covers 80% of Greenland -- melts, the results for the rest of the planet will be monumental. And not in a good way. Experts predict that, if the Greenland ice sheet does indeed melt, sea levels would rise 20 feet (6 meters).

The risks of climate change do not end at simply rising sea levels, which alone should be of concern to residents of New York, Miami, New Orleans and scores of other major metropolitan areas in the United States. The United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) -- which set a road map for tackling the planet's most pressing problems -- are delicately intertwined, so that failing to act on one, such as climate change, can have enormous negative consequences on another, such as hunger, poverty, ocean life, energy and even education.
CNN