More than fifty years ago, I heard directly from our Elders of that generation that what we are witnessing today would happen. I listened to their words, their warnings, and their loving guidance about our relationship with one another and with our Mother Earth.
Now, looking back, those fifty years seem to have passed like a buffalo's breath on a cold day. For a moment, it is there before our eyes, and then it is gone. What once seemed far away has become visible. What our Elders told us about is unfolding around us.
Today, scientists are warning that the El Niño developing in the Pacific will become the strongest ever recorded. Its ultimate strength is still a forecast, but the World Meteorological Organization already warns of a very strong event, bringing heightened risks of extreme heat, drought, and flooding, with impacts continuing into 2027.
We need to understand what this could mean for our relatives in the months ahead.
The Climate Impact Lab projects approximately 451,000 additional heat-related deaths worldwide between June 2026 and February 2027, compared with a normal year. Within that period, approximately 239,000 additional deaths are projected for September through February.
These are estimates, not a count of deaths already recorded or an unavoidable outcome. The researchers emphasize that action now can save tens of thousands of lives.
The heaviest projected losses fall across the Global South. Over September through February, the report estimates approximately 66,800 additional heat deaths in the hardest-hit Sahel countries, including 31,400 in Nigeria and 17,500 in Sudan. It also projects 19,300 in Indonesia, 15,800 in India, and 13,300 in Brazil.
Each number represents a person. A beloved Elder. A child. A mother or father. Someone whose presence holds a family together. Someone with gifts still to share.
As these months unfold, the dangers will differ from place to place. El Niño can alter rainfall patterns, bringing drought to some regions and heavy rains and flooding to others. Its effects can threaten water supplies, food production, health, and livelihoods. The forecasts call us to prepare together, with particular care for communities with the fewest resources to protect themselves.
And, dear Relatives, we must look beyond this one El Niño. Across the long climate record, reaching back to the nineteenth century, and especially through the decades of our own lives, we can see the direction of change.
Our Mother Earth is warming; however, we may see the cause, and each additional increment of warming deepens the dangers to life. Year-to-year variations exist, but the underlying trend is not improving. It is deepening. We can see it. This is why we cannot simply wait for this El Niño to pass and assume that the larger danger will pass with it.
What, then, will the next five years bring? We cannot know every event, every place that will suffer, or every family whose life will be changed. But we know enough to understand that continuing the choices that drive warming will deepen the risks.
The suffering ahead will also depend on whether we prepare, share our resources, and protect one another. We cannot continue placing accumulation above responsibility and expect those choices to bring healing.
These next five years are part of our lives, our children's and grandchildren’s lives. Each year matters. Each choice matters. We still have the capacity to lessen suffering and change the course we are setting for generations to come. That is why this moment calls us to awaken, to come together, and to put our love into action.
But the message I heard from our Elders went even deeper than the changes we are seeing in the weather, the waters, and the lands. They spoke to the condition of our hearts, to our relationships, and to the consequences of forgetting the sacred responsibilities that come with being human.
Our suffering will deepen unless we recognize this moment of choice.
We can continue down the path of materialism, believing that our deepest satisfaction will come from accumulating everything we can in this physical world of time and space.
We can continue measuring success by how much we possess, even while our relationships weaken and the living world that sustains us is placed under greater strain. But how much will ever be enough if we lose our sense of belonging, our love for one another, and our responsibility to the generations still to come?
Every family deserves food, shelter, clean water, health, education, and the opportunity to live with dignity. Providing these things is part of our sacred responsibility.
Material well-being needs a spiritual and moral foundation, a living understanding that our own well-being is bound together with the well-being of others and our Mother Earth.
We can choose the Sacred Path our Creator has continually called us toward, a path illuminated in the loving teachings of the world’s sacred traditions: compassion, truthfulness, justice, humility, generosity, and service. The path to peace. The path toward our spiritual adulthood as one human family. That choice must become visible in what we do in the months ahead.
The researchers identify practical ways to protect life: early heat warnings, outreach to vulnerable people, accessible cooling spaces and drinking water, protections for workers, and health services prepared for increased need. Communities and governments can begin strengthening these actions now.
Our spiritual responsibility is to help ensure that these protections reach our relatives. We can check on Elders living alone, organize local networks of care, listen to community leadership, and share resources where they are needed most. Those with greater wealth and capacity can turn their gifts into protection for others.
This also brings us back to peace. As a human family, we must ask what we are preparing for and what we are investing in. How much more could we accomplish by directing our collective intelligence, resources, and determination toward protecting life, restoring Mother Earth, and ensuring our children's well-being?
We do not need to blame or shame one another to make this choice. We need the courage to look honestly at how we are living and enough love to help one another change. Inner transformation must show itself in our decisions, our institutions, and how we care for those beyond our immediate circle.
Unity grows through participation. We need the wisdom of our Elders, the leadership of women, the gifts of young people, the knowledge of scientists, and the experience of communities rooted in the lands and waters. Each has a place in the work before us.
The Elders’ words have stayed with me across these more than fifty years. Today, I feel their urgency and their love more deeply than ever. Their guidance reminds me that we still have choices to make, responsibilities to fulfill, and the capacity to help one another.
Our breath of life passes quickly, dear Relatives. Our time here is precious. What we choose to do with it matters.
Will we continue seeking fulfillment through endless accumulation? Or will we choose the sacred path to peace, shared responsibility, and our spiritual adulthood?
What is our choice going to be?