Over the years, I’ve cherished the conversations I’ve had with this community. But recently, I found myself sitting with thoughts that felt too heavy, too tangled to share—until now. Sometimes silence isn’t avoidance, it’s simply the space we need to understand ourselves before putting words to what weighs on us. Yesterday, clarity arrived, and with it, a sense of responsibility to speak.
I’ve been carrying many layers at once: the global battle against an invisible enemy in Covid-19, the anticipation of stepping into motherhood for the first time, the questions of what kind of world my daughter will inherit, and the quiet rhythm of quarantine woven with nearly nine months of sobriety. Each of these threads is deeply personal, yet all are tied to a larger truth: we cannot ignore threats just because we cannot see them.
A line from an Italian journalist, writing in The Boston Globe, has stayed with me:
“We didn’t see the need to change our routines for a threat we could not see.”
Read it again.
A threat we could not see.
French President Emmanuel Macron echoed the same idea when he told his people, “The enemy is invisible and insidious, gathering strength from the bonds of human connection.” These words were, of course, about Covid-19. But they could just as easily describe another crisis—one far larger, slower-moving, and equally unseen by many: the climate crisis.
The parallels are striking. Covid-19 is an immediate pandemic; climate change is a prolonged one. Arctic sea ice is shrinking, glaciers are vanishing, seas are warming, weather is intensifying, and coral reefs and forests are dying. Habitats disappear, species face extinction, and yet, because these changes often unfold gradually—or far from where we live—they remain invisible to those not directly touched.
And so, many look away.
Let me be clear: I’m not here to push an agenda. I’m here because I feel a duty, as a fellow human being with a voice, to call attention to what affects us all. We cannot continue ignoring threats that are inconvenient to confront. Whether it’s Covid-19 or global warming, denial only deepens the damage.
If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that our actions ripple outward. Choosing selfishness—refusing to think beyond ourselves—can cost lives. When we dismiss Covid precautions, we don’t just risk our own health; we risk the lives of those more vulnerable. Similarly, when we dismiss the climate crisis because it doesn’t touch us today, we jeopardize the well-being of generations who will face its full weight tomorrow.
In a sense, climate change is like a virus attacking our planet. Pandemics are fought with fevers; the Earth, too, is running hot. And just as we’ve learned the importance of “flattening the curve” with Covid—slowing the spread so hospitals aren’t overwhelmed—we need to ask: how can we flatten the curve of global warming?
This is not just science. It’s humanity. Covid-19 has revealed how deeply interconnected we are, how dependent on one another for survival. Yet modern life has conditioned us otherwise. Success is measured in how busy we are, how much we consume, how much faster we can move. We’ve been running since the Industrial Revolution without pausing to ask: at what cost?
We’ve built a culture of competition, not cooperation. We’re taught to fend for ourselves, not lift one another up. And in the process, we’ve lost touch with the truth that our survival is collective.
Flattening the Covid curve has required sacrifice—staying home, slowing down, adjusting our lives for the greater good. Flattening the climate curve will require the same: choosing sustainable habits, reducing consumption, protecting natural habitats, rethinking what progress looks like. Both challenges ask us to live less selfishly and more consciously, recognizing that our comfort today cannot outweigh the survival of others tomorrow.
If we ignore this call, the consequences will collide all at once: rising seas, food insecurity, mass displacement, loss of biodiversity, and humanitarian crises on a global scale. Just like overwhelmed hospitals in a pandemic, our planet has limits. And once they’re surpassed, recovery becomes infinitely harder.
But here’s the hope: we’ve already seen how quickly the world can change when humans act collectively. Within weeks of global lockdowns, pollution levels dropped, skies cleared, and wildlife reclaimed spaces long dominated by us. It was a glimpse of what’s possible when human activity slows and nature has a chance to breathe.
So, as we sit inside our homes, reflecting on this strange moment in history, I invite you to carry the lesson forward: we can choose to live differently. We can choose to protect the unseen. We can choose to flatten the curve of the climate crisis before it peaks.
Because ultimately, Covid-19 and climate change are teaching us the same lesson: our lives are not just our own. They are intertwined with those around us and with generations yet to come.
The question is not if we will act. It’s when. And the time is now.
