Today, I e-mailed several colleagues regarding the status of an initiative on which we had been working: “Can you remind me where we are with regards to this initiative? I have a dim memory that we were moving this forward, but the details are lost in the haze of COVID.” Turns out I wasn’t the only one—my colleague responded, “…my last e-mail on this was 1/23/20! I think that was about a decade ago.” Our attention has been so focused on COVID-19 for the past year that it can be hard to remember what our other priorities were before the beginning of the pandemic. Since our Incident Command Center was first activated in early 2020, I have been keeping a “topics that were put on hold due to COVID-19” file. In looking at that file, now, it is gratifying to see that I have actually accomplished some of the items on that list. However, it was also eye opening to see what is on the list that I had completely forgotten. Digging through files from a year ago to reconstruct where I was on projects has certainly been enlightening. Part of this process involved deciding which projects and initiatives are worth continuing to pursue and which no longer have relevance. For those projects that remain relevant, I find that I have renewed energy, enthusiasm, and commitment.

As I read Drs. Bass and Weppner’s Q&A column in this edition of the Forum,¹ and reviewed the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health website,² it felt a bit like the experience of emerging from the COVID-19 haze that I describe above. Climate change is not new to SGIM. SGIM has been a member of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health since its founding in 2017, endorsing the Consortium consensus statement³ and having an SGIM representative on the Steering Committee. The effects of climate change on health, and particularly the health of the most vulnerable, are entirely consistent with SGIM’s commitment to population health and addressing health disparities. As we consider our priorities, both individually and as a professional society, climate change and its effects on health are definitely worth our continued attention.

I appreciate the foresight and expertise of the Forum Editor and the authors in bringing this important topic back to light.