The destruction caused by humans in nature is irreparable in the short term. The long term, unfortunately, points to the extinction of humans. So let’s adopt a slogan known in Türkiye. “There is no salvation alone!” We must change in harmony with nature
When I read in a history book last month the words of J. H. Newman, a theologian, historian and many other titles, from another time, I was filled with hope that they might apply today. It may be a false hope, but it is what we have for now, and who knows, maybe it is not so wrong after all.
“In another world it would be different, but here on earth,” Newman said, ”to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often. Given the universal, urgent problems of our time, these words seem to point to the hope we need. A promising nature that is constantly changing, adapting and perhaps therefore perfect!
But unfortunately, we also know humanity, which is constantly destroying nature with its pessimistic attitude. Even though they are always mentioned together, it seems as if an irreconcilable war is going on between nature and humanity, which are positioned at two extremes in today’s conditions. Nature resisting against humanity’s efforts to prevail…
When I read in a history book last month the words of J. H. Newman, a theologian, historian and many other titles, from another era, I was filled with hope that they could apply today. It may be a false hope, but it is what we have for now, and who knows, maybe they are not so wrong after all.
Human-induced extinction
Just by looking at the waters on our planet, we can actually clarify the picture by putting a few recent examples one after the other.
According to the US Snow and Ice Data Center, approximately 48.5 percent of the total glacier area, or 2 million 262 thousand square kilometers, has disappeared in the last 40-45 years. Man-made global warming is to blame.
The overheating of the oceans is dealing a major blow to marine life. According to scientists’ projections, if warming continues at the current rate, by the end of the century it will be so hot that there will be almost no fish left in the tropical oceans. Millions of people living in these regions will lose a vital source of food. Man-made global warming is to blame.
According to data from the Middle East Technical University (METU) Institute of Marine Sciences, oxygen is too low for a fish to survive after the first 30 meters of the Marmara Sea in Türkiye. The reason is water temperature and pollution. Man-made global warming and man-made pollution are to blame.
In a study conducted by Australian scientists, summer ocean temperature data for the last 400 years were analyzed. According to the study, the last 10 years have been the warmest in 400 years, posing a serious threat to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest living ecosystem. Man-made global warming is to blame.
The United Nations recently reported that floods caused by heavy rains in Central and West Africa have so far affected more than 700,000 people. A new study by climate scientists has also found that the extreme rains that triggered the landslides that killed hundreds of people in India last July were exacerbated by the climate crisis. Extreme natural phenomena, such as a dangerous increase in heavy rainfall, are linked to the climate crisis. The climate crisis is caused by human life policies.
Warming sea waters due to the climate crisis threaten the mass fish migration in South Africa. Yet there are countless animals whose life cycles are shaped around this migration. The crisis is caused by man-made global warming.
Let’s not go on.
Can this scenario change?
There is no need to go on at length about the destructive impact of humans on nature. With unending greed, humans are consuming nature’s resources at a rate far exceeding the rate of renewal. They exploit with an aggression that destroys the balance on the planet. They live selfishly and recklessly in a way that does not recognize the right to exist for anyone other than themselves.
At this rate, humanity will have to repeat the desperate words of Samuel Beckett’s famous play Waiting for Godot, written after the devastation of the Second World War: There is nothing to do!
As far as it can be seen, and it is impossible not to be seen or even felt, the humanity that started the war will eventually lose. But it will be such a loss that it may take thousands of years for nature to recover. Nevertheless, let’s say that those who have the ability to transform and renew themselves will survive or rise again.
But can the fiction of this tragic scenario be different? A happy ending, for example? I know it seems difficult, but a transformation must be possible. Let’s take a look at the equation… At the two extremes, there is the destructive civilization built by humans and the natural structure that evolves with the internal dynamics of the earth. And if the transformation takes place on both sides, perhaps a state of humanity that does not deny nature, a state of humanity accepted by nature, can make a difference in the end of humanity.
Two-way conversion
It seems that if there really is hope, there is transformation. But this transformation must be two-way, which is not impossible. To wink at the fact that transformation can happen in the most unlikely of places, and to add some lightness to this depressing subject, it is time to recall an anecdote told elsewhere in a different context. The joke, which I read from psychotherapist and author Adam Phillips, and he quoted Freud, is as follows: A seriously ill patient, who works as an insurance agent and has no religion, is brought, at the request of his relatives, a priest to convert him before he dies. The conversation goes on for so long that the waiting relatives begin to get their hopes up. Finally, the door to the patient’s room opens, the atheist has not been converted, but the priest has taken out insurance and left.
Of course, the transformation of our planet will not be as loose, fluid and easy as the comfort that laughter creates in our bodies. But at a point where we are pushing life to the brink of frightening extinction, we should not take this hope for granted.
As historian Mark Kishlansky says in The Transformed Monarchy: The problem is easy, except that there is no solution.
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