Coronavirus and Climate Change

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed governments, businesses, and individuals worldwide into rapid, decisive action — lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccine development at record speed. Yet climate change, a slower-moving but arguably more far-reaching crisis, has struggled to inspire the same level of urgency and sacrifice. This piece explores that puzzling gap: why humanity can mobilize so swiftly against an immediate, visible threat like a virus, but drags its feet on a long-term, diffuse threat like a warming planet.

It also examines an often-overlooked lever for climate action: religion and faith-based leadership. Rabbi Yonatan Neril, founding director of The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development, speaks from the historic Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City about how spiritual traditions can motivate environmental stewardship — tapping into values like moral responsibility, stewardship of creation, and community accountability that secular messaging often fails to reach.

A companion video dives into a related angle: how the coronavirus pandemic itself may be linked to humanity’s fractured relationship with the natural world and animals, suggesting that pandemics and climate change share common root causes in how we treat ecosystems and wildlife.