Appropriate to a year in which extreme weather events wreaked havoc, and brave and resolute young people took to the streets to demand action, climate change was the theme of New York’s famous New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square.

“Every year, the organizers of the event invite special guests to push a crystal button on the main stage to signal that it’s time to drop the ball” to ring in the new year, writes Grist. To mark last year’s theme of media freedom, 2019 was rung in by 12 prominent journalists. This year, the honour went to New York City science teachers Jared Fox and Aida Rosenbaum, along with four of their students. Ricardo Herrera and Diane Arevalo of Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School in Manhattan were chosen for their work “on a clean air project that would build a green space between the school and a nearby park,” Grist says. And Youth Climate March organizers Daniel Soto and Van Troy Ulloa of the Bronx Latin School were acknowledged for raising funds for areas without clean water.

“You’d have to have your head buried in the Saudi Arabian sand to not be alarmed by all of the environmental catastrophes of 2019,” said Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, a co-organizer of the ball drop event. “You’d also have to have a soul of Styrofoam not to be moved by the passion of young people demanding that we do better and ‘listen to the science’ to start solving the problem.”