SIX STORMS 

SIX STORMS, ONE CIVIC DUTY: BUILDING HUMAN RESILIENCE IN A HARD SEASON

War, famine, poverty, disease, climate disruption, and white supremacy are often discussed as separate crises. Today’s news shows them moving as one weather system. A missile strike becomes a food shock. A blocked sea lane becomes a medicine shortage. A court ruling becomes a test of representation. A shooting becomes a test of public trust. The civic question is not whether communities should care about events far away; the civic question is whether we can build institutions wise enough to see the connections before pain reaches the doorstep.

The war landscape is widening. Afghanistan and Pakistan have traded accusations of renewed cross-border attacks, with deaths reported in eastern Afghanistan and injuries reported in South Waziristan. In Lebanon, more than a million people fled at the height of fighting, and more than 115,000 people remain in collective shelters while evacuation warnings continue to unsettle civilian life. Ukraine’s economy is still strained by Russian attacks on energy and logistics infrastructure, while Sudan’s civil war has left 28.9 million people acutely food-insecure. These are not isolated fires; they are burning along the same human frontier: shelter, food, safety, health care, and dignity. 

Famine and poverty follow war like shadows. Reuters reported that the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz disruption could push more than 30 million people back into poverty through fuel and fertilizer shocks. Rice supplies are also under pressure as Asian farmers face higher fuel costs, fertilizer shortages, disrupted shipping, and hotter, drier weather linked to El Nino. The Associated Press reported that U.N. World Food Program estimates warn that 45 million additional people, mostly in Asia and Africa, could fall into hunger if the war does not ease by midyear. For families already spending half or more of their income on food, the margin between stability and hunger is painfully thin. 

Disease is the next wave. The World Health Organization describes Sudan as the world’s largest ongoing health crisis, with disease spreading, malnutrition rising, and access to care declining after three years of conflict. The Guardian reports that aid groups are calling for a humanitarian corridor through the Strait of Hormuz because soaring oil prices and blockade conditions are slowing or blocking food, fuel, and medical aid. Disease does not wait for diplomacy. When clinics close, water systems fail, and families flee, epidemics find the cracks. 

Climate is woven through the same crisis. Reuters reports that the Iran war is accelerating some clean-energy adoption because governments are trying to reduce exposure to volatile oil and gas markets, while also warning that some countries are temporarily increasing coal or furnace-oil power generation. That is the crossroads: a fossil-fuel shock can either trap the world in dirtier emergency choices or speed a just transition toward cleaner, safer energy. 

The domestic civic challenge named here as white supremacy appears through contests over racial representation, political violence, legal power, and imperial memory. In Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court addressed whether Louisiana’s congressional map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, while SCOTUSblog reported that the Court struck down a map that had created a second majority-Black district. The White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting and the new James Comey indictment intensify public anxiety around violence, speech, law, and retaliation. King Charles III’s state visit, timed to the 250th anniversary of American independence, also reminds Americans that symbols of empire still move through civic life. 

For Progress for All, a 501(C)(3), the path is nonpartisan civic education: teach people how systems connect, how rights are protected, how aid reaches families, how climate resilience works, and how communities can answer fear with service. The moment is grave, but not barren. Every crisis is also a classroom. Every neighbor taught is a lantern lit.