Author: Tory Dietel Hopps

Tory Dietel Hopps is Managing Partner of Dietel & Partners, managing portfolios for clients with both domestic and international interests, while assisting grantees with their strategies, resource development and capacity building. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Health Care Without Harm, the National Advisory Board of Wholesome Wave, the Development Committee of Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project in Uganda, and the Development Committee of RefugePoint. She’s the mother of two grown children and lives with her husband in Maine.

COVID: Our Last Dress Rehearsal on Climate Change

Editor’s Note: The following essay is by Tory Dietel Hopps, Managing Partner of Dietel & Partners, where she assists grantees with strategies, resource development and capacity building.

As the past weeks have unfolded, I have found myself thinking about the choices I will make regarding what I will not go back to after COVID-19. I believe that we are essentially having a dress rehearsal for what must be our new normal. This pandemic has made it abundantly clear that as a human race, we are truly globally interconnected.

climate change
(Image Credit: Martin Sanchez at Unsplash)

This has been the message of climate activists for decades, but the esoteric nature of those conversations clearly were not getting us to move quickly enough. It took a real life and death situation to make us realize we can change our behavior on a dime if we need and want to. We have an opportunity to come out of this pandemic with a new normal where we don’t go back to how we functioned before. This is an opportunity we cannot afford to squander.

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