Endemic water-borne diseases kill more than 10,000 children in India each year. COVID-19 now threatens a health system that has proved powerless to cover the 1.3 billion inhabitants of the second most populated country on Earth. The lack of sanitation and hydric stress are factors that increase the risks of the pandemic.

Epidemics and pandemics have marked African history. COVID-19 arrives in the continent overlapping with other endemic diseases, serious medical deficiencies and unmet goals in the access to water and sanitation. The African population is well aware of the power of community spirit. It is their most powerful weapon in the fight against the pandemic and we can all learn from it.

The adoption of the circular economy in the complete water cycle is presented as the best option for achieving water security for large areas of the world in the face of climate change and demographic imbalances. The new productive model requires a communication challenge to achieve awareness and citizen participation in the understanding that the water cycle is a universal natural capital, knows no borders and is vital for the future of mankind.

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.