In her weekly column Gülseren Onanç evokes climate activist Greta Thunberg’s quote “our house is on fire” in her reflection on Turkey’s wildfires. She makes a case of total struggle against climate change, reviews the reflections about the wildfires and their implications.
We are experiencing a deep trauma. Watching the forest fires that have been going on for days aroused a common sense of anger and helplessness in us. Remaining an observer in our house while the forests are burning and living creatures are dying made us fear for the future. The places where we were born, grew up and lived, spend our holidays are lost. Most of the time, we feel ourselves useless and think that the impact we can make as an individual in society will not change anything. This state of mind leads us into a kind of grief and mourning.
While trees, animals, villages, houses and fields were destroyed, those who tried to extinguish the fire with their own means could not find a competent, knowledgeable and responsible state by their side.
“We were terrified for our lives, and we were terrified for our property. Our olive groves are gone, burned to ashes. What good is our life from now on?” says Gülsevi Aktaş from Çökertme. Please check other voices of women surrender their houses and lands to the fire
On the other hand, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had 13 aircraft in his own fleet, but stated that Turkey lacked functional firefighting aircraft and had to accept offers of assistance from Ukraine and Russia, as well as from the European Union. This statement fuelled anger and frustration. For this reason, Journalist Aslı Aydıntaşbaş rightly described forest fires in Turkey as a devastating story of neglect and failure in her article published in the Washington Post.
The failure is not limited to not being able to fight the fires that have raged for the last weeks. Turkey, along with Iran, Eritrea and Libya, is one of six countries that have not ratified the Paris Climate Agreement. Rather than committing to reducing carbon emissions, Turkey’s global share of carbon emissions was increasing until 2018. The AKP (Justice and Development Party) government still supports coal mining. It recklessly encourages construction in coastal areas at the expense of forest lands and natural ecosystems. The government has changed the long-standing law prohibiting zoning on forest lands and has allowed zoning to start on some areas.
Our house in on fire: A total struggle against climate change is needed
Istanbul Policy Center Climate Change Coordinator Dr Ümit Şahin says that the only solution against the devastating forest fires is to fight climate change. He argues the world has reached an advanced stage in the fight against climate change, because we possess all kinds of technology and money to completely abandon fossil fuels, so not doing this is only a political decision. He warms by stating that “it is necessary to change the economic policies, you cannot bargain with nature. You can’t bargain with the laws of physics.
We shall recall young climate activist Greta Thurberg who said for years, “our house is on fire” and urgent action is needed.
We need to accept the reality of the climate crisis, which is a man-made crisis that has been exacerbated by the neoliberal economic system, and we shall take action to change the system. “We are at a breaking point in human history,” says Demet Parlar, from the Istanbul Medical Chamber. In times like these we should ask the question: “where are we going?”
What does it mean to be human? What is our relationship with the nature ?
Demet Parlar’s article addresses the questions: “What is our place in the world? Where should we stand in today’s world in the face of an uncertain future?” In her essay, in which she seeks to find answers for these questions, she states that, “we live in a period which is named the “Anthropocene/Human Age”, a term that has become increasingly popular globally in the last 20 years.” The gap that the monotheistic religions opened between us and nature put all non-human animate and inanimate beings on our planet into the service of humans. This gap deepened and widened after the 17th century with the spread of the Cartesian approach, that considered non-human living things as machines or automatons. Profit-oriented industrialization has caused us to forget our ties with nature and has alienated us from nature. Nature is now viewed as a phase that must be overcome for the development of humanity and culture.
The Anthropocene began to show its first symptoms in the 1970s with the depletion of the ozone layer. Especially in the last 10 years, the World Health Organization has declared a state of emergency six times until the coronavirus pandemic, we witnessed the fires that led to the destruction of more than one billion living creatures and millions of hectares of forests in Australia, major floods, the de-forestation of the Amazon forests, the acidification of ocean waters. As Parlar argues our planet’s calls for “help” as these events are signs that we are rapidly moving towards an irreversible path that will pose more severe symptoms such as the melting of glaciers. Therefore, she correctly asks: “Is it not the time to redefine what is human through our connections and relationships with nature?”
Women are more sensitive to the environment
Studies show that women are more sensitive to the environment they live in than men and there is a gender gap in environmental awareness. According to a recent study, women tend to display more environmentally friendly behaviours than men. According to experts who have focused on the relationship between sustainability and gender for a long time, women are more conscious of the climate crisis, more supportive of environmentally friendly regulations, and are more familiar with the scientific background of disasters such as the melting glaciers and the rising seas. In addition, women are more concerned about the impact of climate change on future generations. According to the researchers, environmentalism is seen by women and men as a more “feminine” behaviour.
The wisdom of indigenous women
Pit River Nation indigenous tribes have been historically making a July pilgrimage to Medicine Lake in Northern California. However, they were unable to perform this ritual this year due to forest fires and drought caused by climate change. “Because we are a land-based people, our homeland is where we are truly connected and rooted,” says Samantha Chisholm Hatfield, a member of the Confederate Tribes of Siletz Indians and a research fellow at the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute.
Environmental activist Hande Aydın says that gender equality and environmental issues should be included in the economic and political agenda of the society together.
The only way to recover from the trauma we are in is to find a conscious and organized way to struggle as active citizens.
We need a different system
As the economist climate activist Jeffrey Sachs said, “We Need a Different System.”
We must work for a world order based on the principles of human dignity and economic rights that are referred to in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in which the United Nations functions as a fundamental and central institution. We must fight to stop climate change.
We have a responsibility to our world and to future generations.
Hope and struggle with solidarity are what suit us not anger, worry, and fear!