Comorbidities in the field of medicine describe the presence of two or more illnesses or diseases in the same person at the same time. Comorbidities are associated with health outcomes that are more severe, requiring treatment that is more complex.

Climate change and COVID-19 are both considered to be “wicked” problems because each consists of many independent factors that are in flux, making the search for a solution daunting. All of humanity is now faced with the comorbidities of climate change and COVID-19.

Climate change is already responsible for extreme weather that is increasing the severity of hurricanes, wildfires, droughts and heat waves in various parts of the world. These devastating events will become commonplace as time goes on.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 has infected 45 million people in the U.S. and 720,000 have died. In Hawaii the numbers are 82,000 infections and 850 deaths. These high numbers have arisen despite vigorous efforts to control it.

In the past 18 months, everyone has been impacted for the worse by COVID-19. People worry, and that worry often turns into depression. In the long term, it looks like we are going to have to learn to live with COVID.

COVID-19 has drawn much more attention than climate change because human beings are hardwired emotionally to attend to immediate perceived threats. We all feel the threat of COVID-19 because it is in our communities. But the full effect of climate change is still to come, and it will be much more devastating.

Climate change is largely the result of burning fossil fuels, which puts greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and warms the planet. The climate disasters that are now occurring are the result of the global average temperature warming by only 1 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Two more degrees of warming — for a total of 3 degrees — would result in horrifying hurricanes, wildfires, droughts and heat waves, a drop in food production, famine, the creation of hundreds of millions of climate refugees, and the spread of illnesses and diseases.

Even if countries meet the commitments they made under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world is heading toward a warming of more than 3 degrees.

We need a drastic transition away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy. However, fossil fuel companies are fighting against that transition — and they are winning.

At the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the world’s consumption of fossil fuel declined. But that was only temporary. Consumption has since risen to nearly pre-COVID-19 levels, and Hawaii mirrors the global pattern.

Fortunately, Hawaii has not experienced the extreme effects of climate change. But because we lack that experience, we are too indifferent, and we have taken too little action. Moreover, COVID-19 fatigue has created a kind of paralysis.

This is where leadership is critical. Our leaders must be passionate and courageous enough to make the drastic changes needed to avoid devastating future scenarios. These leaders exist, but not in sufficient numbers.

What we do in the next decade to control climate change will determine how livable the Earth will be in the subsequent decades.

Will we succeed in forging a transformation to healthy communities that thrive in healthy natural environments? Or will we fail? Our children and their children will find out.

John Kawamoto is a former legislative analyst and an advocate for the environment.