COVID-19 may be teaching us the most important lesson of our lives — no matter what generation we're from.

One of the biggest obstacles to taking action on the climate crisis is that the scope of the threat seems so ridiculously large. Even while we acknowledge it intellectually, it feels unreal... and that sense of unreality makes it a lot harder to support the kind of urgent, large-scale action we desperately need to take.

Early last February, lockdown and the abandonment of shared offices were surreal ideas. Even while they were happening, we kept comparing the experience to dystopian science fiction (which, by the way, is just one more reason we could all probably stand to read more science fiction). Today, it's all utterly routine.

I hope terrible losses of this past year haven't been in vain. If we take anything from it (other than a timely shot in the arm and some newfound immunity) let it be our ability to imagine the scale of disaster that really can occur, and the scope and speed of our capacity to respond.