On Sept. 5, over 230 medical journals from across the world came together to publish a joint statement demanding “urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1.5 C, halt the destruction of nature and protect health.” Authors of the statement believed that action had to be taken immediately — it was not possible to wait for the COVID-19 pandemic to fade. The joint statement, which NPR referred to as “unprecedented” in a Sept. 7 article, involved prominent members of medical journals from around the world.