The COVID-19 pandemic is an unavoidable crisis that threatens the health and work of each one of us. It is a disaster that compromises the attainment of the SDGs, affecting us all. Evolving from an individual perspective to a collective intelligence is what will allow us to overcome it. And we need to do it now, the virus leaves us no margin in terms of time.

The health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of handwashing with soap and water as one of the keys to halting the spread of the disease. However, only three out of five people all around the world have basic facilities for this elementary standard of hygiene. Deaths from failure to do so amount to hundreds of people every day, most of them children.

The denial of climate change or its anthropogenic causes is a position that, although defended by a minority, has powerful political and economic allies that amplify and encourage it. The distortion of information and demagogy are favored by the inhibition caused by an excess of superficial and purely alarming information. Communicating by raising awareness while educating is the best antidote to denial and the way to solutions.

The loss of ice on Earth is one of the most worrying and visible consequences of global warming. It has an impact on sea level rise, is capable of altering ocean dynamics and threatens to accelerate climate change.

The latest violent meteorological phenomena experienced in the western Mediterranean area force a review of the factors that define the risk of people and goods. The intensification of exposure and vulnerability is an anthropogenic factor that must be controlled in the face of the foreseeable increase in storms that science is pointing out. Beyond the fight to mitigate the effects of climate change, we have to renew our efforts to adapt to a reality that is here to stay.

The disruption of the access to water and the deterioration of sanitation are almost omnipresent in all conflicts. In general, this is a little known aspect that extends suffering beyond combat areas. It is the case of the eastern zone of Ukraine, described in the short film War and Water, finalist of the We Art Water Film Festival 4. There are currently 25 armed conflicts in the world and more than 75 million displaced due to violence.

Water pollution due to illegal gold mines is a serious problem in Ghana, a country in which 70% of the diseases are caused by unsafe water. Galamsey is a phenomenon that prevents the economic growth of the country and pollutes rivers and aquifers to lethal levels. This is the case of the Ghanaian protagonist of the short film Nothing Has Changed, finalist of the We Art Water Film Festival 4.

The melting of the subsoil of the Artic territories is a factor of growing concern to scientists. 19 million square kilometers of northern and alpine land are a major carbon sink that mankind cannot lose in its fight against global warming. Moreover, 35 million people live on this frozen layer, who see the threat to the stability of the soil on which their homes are built and can be exposed to microorganisms that have “hibernated” for millennia.