Through what is now a fairly long career as a climate scientist with a special fondness for the Arctic, most of my research has focused on the physical environment and questions of the what and the why. What are the trends in Arctic sea ice extent, and why are we seeing them? Why are the trends bigger in summer than in winter? What changes are we seeing in patterns of Arctic precipitation and temperature and what is causing them? These are among the questions that have driven much of my research. But over the past decade, I, like many others, have been increasing drawn to questions surrounding impacts: why it all matters. What are the impacts of what is now viewed by many as the “New Arctic” on the Arctic terrestrial and marine environments, the peoples of the north and the rest of the world? Why should the rest of the world care about the changing north? In this talk, I’ll provide some personal reflections on how my thinking about Arctic change has evolved through the years, and some of the events that have driven that change. What I’ve realized is that like many others, I am in the middle of a very steep learning curve, made all the steeper by the rapidity of the interconnected changes unfolding in the north.