The Cost Of Silence...

By Monica Sood

We scroll past images of flooded streets,raging wildfires, and crumpled homes. We shake our heads, sigh for a moment, then carry on with our routines. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: this isn’t happening somewhere else. It’s happening to all of us, slowly, steadily, and now violently.

For me, it’s no longer just headlines on a screen. It’s heartbreaking to see the floods tearing through Himachal, my hometown, and Punjab, where I grew up. Streets I once walked, are now unrecognisable under water. People are living in fear, losing their homes, their fields, their livelihoods. Families who once relied on the land are watching it wash away before their eyes. Children are unable to go to school, elders are displaced, and entire communities are left wondering how to rebuild when the ground beneath them is still shifting.

What’s unfolding isn’t just a natural disaster, it’s a human one. And while the pain feels personal to me, the reality is that it belongs to all of us. Climate change doesn’t respect borders. Every lost home, every broken livelihood, is a warning we can’t afford to ignore. Forests are stripped bare while we look away. Rivers choke on plastic while we sip bottled water. Skies thicken with smoke while we adjust the thermostat indoors. We’ve been silent witnesses to a disaster in slow motion.

The question is how long can silence shield us?

England: No Longer the Mild Isle

When I migrated to the UK 25 years ago, the weather here was different. Summers were mild, and we used to long for those three or four golden days when the temperature would creep up to 25 °C. Those days meant family trips to the beach, children playing in the sun, and a brief taste of warmth before the drizzle returned.

But that’s not the England of today. Year after year, the thermometer rises higher than we ever thought possible. We are seeing temperatures soaring to 35 to 40 degrees. This summer was England’s hottest on record, with the average reaching 16.1 °C, more than 1.5 °C warmer than the long-term average. Four separate heatwaves forced families indoors and pushed hospitals to their limits.

Floods are no longer rare, either. 6.3 million homes already sit in zones at risk of flooding, and that number is expected to rise to 8 million. Storms like Ciara and Dennis left thousands of properties underwater in 2020. These aren’t once-in-a-century events anymore—they are becoming the rhythm of our seasons.

If this is happening in a country once known for drizzle and mild summers, what does that say about what lies ahead?

India: Monsoon, Once Sacred, Now Fearsome

Growing up in India, every summer holiday we travelled from Chandigarh to Kullu Manali, to my dadke, my father’s parents’ house. Some of my happiest childhood memories are rooted there, days filled with cousins, laughter, and simple joys. There were no fridges, no fans, and yet we never felt deprived. We felt connected to nature, to the forests, orchards, to the mountains themselves. Our pastime was to wander into the orchards and pluck fresh plums, apples, and apricots.

But those slopes and orchards that shaped my childhood are changing. Year after year, more hotels were built, more forests disappeared, and still we all silently witnessed. The green valleys that once seemed untouched are now scarred by overdevelopment and floods.

The monsoon, once celebrated as a season of renewal, now carries fear.

• Northwest India this year saw its wettest August in over two decades, unleashing floods that swallowed villages, fields, and roads.

• In Punjab, more than 61,000 hectares of farmland were submerged, leaving over a million people displaced.

• Landslides in the Himalayas have torn through towns, while flash floods alone have taken hundreds of lives this  year.

The monsoon has shifted from a lifeline to disaster that’s causing havoc.

But what’s the real danger?

The real danger isn’t just the storms, floods, or fires. It’s our quiet acceptance. We’ve told ourselves: It won’t happen here. It won’t happen to me. But the earth is proving us wrong, we are witnessing record breaking summer, wild fires engulfing cities and towns, melting glaciers, swollen rivers, cloud burst and landslides claiming lives and livelihoods.

And while governments debate and industries delay, we communities can act beyond watching?

It’s Time to Move Beyond Watching Silently and Start Acting

This moment asks something different of us. It asks us to wake from our silence:

• Plant not just one tree but many.

• Cut down not just on plastic bags, but on patterns of waste.

• Speak up, not in whispers to friends but loudly, in schools, communities, workplaces, and parliaments.

• Support policies that choose long-term survival over short-term convenience.

Change doesn’t begin in conference rooms, it begins in how we live, and in whether we dare to make different choices today.

The Question That Won’t Leave Us

I’ve lived long enough to see two homes, England and India, transform before my eyes. The country I moved to is warmer and stormier than I ever imagined it could be. The mountains I grew up in are scarred by floods and stripped of their forests.

So it’s time to ask and act collectively.

When the next flood rises or the next fire spreads, should we convince ourself it’s happening somewhere else, or should we choose to act now, however small, to be part of the change?

By Monica Sood