The Earth we live on with our loved ones, in whose vineyards we play around, in whose seas we swim, whose mountains we climb , whose water we drink and bread we eat, whose flowers we smell, on whom we watch the sunset, asks for our help. Don’t you think we should do something about it?
The harm we do to the nature and its inhabitants is actually the harm we do to ourselves. Ours is a kind of suicide, like cutting one’s own throat or polluting the water we drink. So, what can we do?
There seems to be no other way than to change our lifestyles completely.
Today, there are about 6.5 billion people on the earth and by 2025, this number is projected to be 7.6 billion. To live a life in compliance with European standards, the maximum world population must be 700 million. Even now, the population is 10 times more than this figure and it continues to increase; it is impossible for the world resources to be sufficient considering our habits.
We must stop the consumption frenzy, urgently.
Life in the big cities must be reformed according to the pedestrians; modern public transport, bicycle routes, safe sidewalks, eco-friendly living spaces, immigration-prevention measures, and adopting local development and survival methods are required to establish equal opportunity for all species…
We must decenter humanity and perceive it as a species; yes, it is an important species, but only a species.
Real saving measures must be implemented in every field of life and every corner of the world and we can do this only by adopting the idea of being an Earthling…
The resources spent on wars must be used to render the world more livable, science must be utilized only to protect nature and to reconcile humanity with nature.
There must be a total disarmament environment all over the world. The borders must represent rich cultural heritage, not political, military boundaries. The common motivation of the peoples of the whole world must be survival as a species and this can be achieved only by peace. We will either make peace or disappear altogether. A genuine peace, an Olympic spirit…
Domestic politics and politicians must act in accordance with the idea of being an Earthling and the realities of the world…
Why did we build this website and what are we trying to do?
The adventure has started with escape-to-nature programs; we have organized many outdoor activities at home and abroad. We have climbed mountains, passed canyons, gone rafting in treacherous waters, gone on nature walks, ridden bikes, climbed rocks, swum…
In the meanwhile, we realized that our play areas were getting diminished, ice caps of the mountains that embraced us were melting down, the waters we swam in were getting polluted, the narrow pathways we walked on were widening or disappearing altogether, the lakes we photographed were draining away, our animal friends that accompanied us at times were not around anymore, and we felt responsible for the nature. We shouldn’t have just climbed the mountains, but we should have protected the mountains as well. We felt that the lakes we photographed, on which we watched the sunset and the birds playing around, were expecting our help.
We noticed anomalies in the water we drank and the seas we swam in. We wanted to do something for nature which embraced us and made us feel better every single time.
We noticed that the causes of our problems were not merely ecological. Justice and equality, corrupted media and journalism that consume time and confuse people, companies focused solely on profit-making and the governments, armies, police and law controlled by these companies… Unfair sharing of resources, exploitation policies carried out under the name of globalization, constant changes in the agenda, restraining and deceiving peoples by the fear of the future, hunger and poverty, debts and soccer… Exploiting the democracy in the interest of a happy minority, and using the power against peoples… These forced us to think more deeply and to do something. We wanted to go beyond grumbling and start the change in ourselves, to be a model for this change and to encourage others.
We created the website www.dunyalilar.org and wanted to build a community that develops projects to protect nature, life and the future, a community that informs people and produces scientific and holistic solutions to the issues. Of course, we will always collaborate with other civil society movements concerning the protection of nature, quest for justice, opposition to exploitation, common attitude towards inequality, exploitation, otherization and rebellion against racism, but we will also have our own opinions to tell.
We invite you to follow our website, contribute to it and become an Earthling. Let’s act together to create individuals and societies that are sensitive to what is happening around them and live in harmony with it without betraying the nature. Let our movement transform into a civil initiative that is capable of influencing not only our own country but all the governments around the world.
Let this platform be one of our mediums for civil disobedience and change.
Let’s pay our debts to the mountains we climb, to the lakes on which we watch the sunset, to our animal friends who stopped visiting us, to the seas we pollute, to the forests we burn and to our future.
“We didn’t set out to save the world, but we can start a change in ourselves and our immediate surroundings, and thus we can contribute to a more livable world, and -why not- to the recovery of the Earth. Because if there is no Earth, there is nothing…”
Dünyalılar (www.dunyalilar.org)