Dr. Faustus and children in the age of fire

Photo: AA

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"Millions of acres are burning in the Arctic, thousands of fires blaze in the Amazon, and with seemingly endless flareups in between, from California to Gran Canaria – fire seems everywhere, and everywhere dangerous and destabilizing. With a worsening climate, the fires dappling Earth from the tropics to the tundra appear as the pilot flames of an advancing apocalypse. To some commentators, so dire, so unprecedented are the forecast changes that they argue we have no language or narrative to express them."

Stephen Pyne, emeritus professor at the University of Arizona and famous natural historian, tells the story of the great transformation in the hundreds of thousands of years of humanity's history, that is, the "twist" in the transition from burning living lands in a controlled way to burning stony lands as fossil fuels in his "divinely" article titled "Winter Isn't Coming. Prepare for the Pyrocene" published on the HNN (History News Network) website.

The article, published in the journal Columbia University College of Arts and Sciences, is dated August 25, 2019. That is, the date of the day exactly 2 years ago from the publication of this article on bianet!

In the intervening two years, uncontrolled fires have multiplied everywhere, as Professor Tyne so clearly predicted: from rural fires in Australia where 3 billion animals were scorched and burned to California and the northwestern United States and western Canada, where the skies were pitch black, the smoke and fog reached the other side of the vast continent and covered the air of New York City, to the fires in which 1 billion shellfish were "boiled and cooked" on the coast of British Columbia, Canada...

Millions of hectares of land were burned during the hundreds of fires in Siberia, which is known as the coldest place where humans live on Earth.

In addition to the fact that it ignited and destroyed the living things on it, it was determined that the permafrost, which had been permanently frozen for thousands of years, thawed, leading to the release of that deadly greenhouse gas, methane, which is much more dangerous than carbon dioxide.

Unprecedented fires in the south of Europe, in Italy, in France, in the Balkans, in the northern Mediterranean, in Algeria, in Tunisia, and of course in Turkey, especially in the southern regions, wounded our feelings, caused conspiracy theories, and took many lives.

Some of them even caused ancient tragedies to be transferred to the present day- such as the young musician who came to the aid of the fire victims in Algeria, was accused of being a "terrorist arsonist" and burned alive and lynched.

Moreover, these fires caused financial losses that cannot be easily calculated, filled us all with a sense of deep sadness, and caused us to fall into a "solastalgia". Unfortunately, it seems certain that it will continue like this.

These are the scenes reminiscent of the descriptions of hell in the Bible. (NOTE: If you want, let's not talk about the other side of the holy book descriptions such as waters, floods, and Noachian flood, in this article.)

Cars and homes were destroyed by the Dixie Fire in central Greenville

Fire: Oldest narrative of humanity

"There is a narrative," says Pyne: one of the oldest narratives known to humanity. At the same time, one that has defined humanity's distinctive ecological agency. That is the story of fire:

"Earth is a uniquely fire planet – it has been since life clambered onto the continents. Equally, humans are a uniquely fire creature, not only the keystone species for fire but a species monopolist over its manipulation. The fires in the Arctic testify to the planetary antiquity of fire [...] the fires in the Amazon bear witness to a Faustian pact that hominins made with fire so long ago it is coded into our genome. They are set by people in circumstances that people made, well outside ecological barriers and historical buffers.

"This is a narrative so ancient it is prelapsarian. Our alliance with fire has become a veritable symbiosis. We got small guts and big heads because we learned to cook food. We went to the top of the food chain because we learned to cook landscapes. Now we have become a geological force because we have begun to cook the planet. We have taken fire to places and times it could never have reached on its own, and it has taken us everywhere, even off world. We have leveraged fire; fire has leveraged us."

"Long hot summers"

A sharp warning that there will be no more winter, but summer heat was addressed thoroughly in the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is considered the most competent scientific delegation in the World.

T24 writer Cemal Tunçdemir, in his article titled "Summer is Coming", stated that "alarm bells are now ringing deafeningly" at the press conference of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, where the sixth report published on August 9, 2021, was announced.

He called this new report a "red alarm for humanity" and stated that the sixth and last UN report said, "Summer has come". The author also discussed the dependence of humanity on fossil fuels with mythological analogies:

"For most of our 11,000-year history, we envisioned hell underground in the land of Hades and heaven in the sky. When we realized that the black fruit of Hades and its juice, that is, the heat that coal and oil bring to us, would turn our skies into hell, we could not give up easily as we got used to the taste of possibilities. Coal and oil- formed by the carbonization of vegetative layers and fossils of living things that were destroyed in climate disasters millions of years ago- are the most important sources of the emission of carbon dioxide, which has a greenhouse effect in the atmosphere, well above the natural level in a very short time like 100 years. With this greenhouse effect, the global temperature has risen by 1.2 degrees Celsius since the industrial age began."

Faustian bargain and due debt

A rather striking reference to the Faustian bargain came across in a scientific article published just two weeks ago. James Hansen- a famous climate scientist (Director of NASA Goddard Institute), who declared to the world that global warming is a human-made phenomenon in his testimony in the US Senate in the late 1980s, and explained it to the world in a scientifically understandable way with his usual calm style writes in his latest scientific report, co-authored with his colleague Makiko Sato, that the July 2021 global temperature is close to the record for being the highest temperature since the beginning of measurement (0.02°C).

Hansen and Sato, in their article titled "July Temperature Update: Faustian Payment Comes Due," graphically reveal that one of the most important reasons why is the Earth has increasingly become the target of infernal fires is the increasing energy imbalance of the Earth.

They show that this balance difference, which was about half a watt per square meter in the 45-odd year period (1971-2015), has nearly doubled since 2015 – that is, in just 5-odd years – to 1W/m2! The energy imbalance of the Earth, which has increased at such a dizzying speed, is the main reason for the acceleration of global warming.

Moreover, they also find that if the necessary measures are not taken, the energy imbalance in the quarter-century between 2015-2040 will nearly double the 0.18°C/decade rate between 1970-2015!

The article of Hansen and Sato concludes with this striking sentence about our debt issues:

"The Faustian payment that we noted in 1990 and is discussed in detail elsewhere is now due. Dr. Faust had to pay the debt himself. We have willed it to our children and grandchildren."

Our children and their struggle

Children? Legacy? On the 3rd Anniversary of 15-year-old girl Greta Thunberg's one-person action, which will turn into the largest protest movement in the world a year later, that is, opening a banner in front of her country's parliament and starting school strike, UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) made a statement that can be expected to have a great impact: The number of children under "extreme risk" due to the climate crisis and air/environmental pollution events (extreme heatwaves, fires, floods, tornadoes, diseases, drought, air pollution, etc.) was close to 1 billion! And that is almost half of the world's 2.2 billion children! UNICEF director Henrietta Fore said one of the most succinct and tragic words in the world:

"For the first time, we have a complete picture of where and how children are vulnerable to climate change, and that picture is almost unimaginably dire. Virtually no child's life will be unaffected."

Regarding the UNICEF report, which was announced together with young climate activists and argued that the participation of young people in all climate talks and decisions is mandatory, Thunberg did not hesitate for a moment to strike the following decisive point in the minds of us:

"We are not just victims; we are also leading the fight. But [the world] is still not treating the climate crisis like an emergency. We are still just talking and greenwashing things instead of taking real action. But, on the other hand, there have been many millions of people mobilized, especially young people, and that is a very important step in the right direction."

For the future where the people and the planet come first

Child and youth activists are acting, while the UNICEF director says there is still time to act. Near-term goal: The first worldwide de facto street strike action after the pandemic break - expected to be massive. On September 24! In the text of the Platform, which includes a call to oppose not only the climate crisis, but all inequalities and injustices created by the system, it is briefly stated as follows:

"The time to join the masses and follow the lead of the environmental defenders and workers has been long overdue. Reparations to MAPA must be paid for the historic injustices of the richest elite, drastic emission cuts in the Global North, vaccine equity, cancellation of debt, and climate finance are only the beginning of these. Together we will fight for a just future where no one is left behind. The historical victories of collective action have proven the need for the youth to stand united with the multisectoral, intergenerational struggle for a better future for all; a future where people and planet are prioritized."

Afterward, there is the issue of the youth and children having a say at the UN climate summit COP26, but there is still time. Let's conclude with hopes of covering it in another article.

"As The Climate and World Change" article series*

Our life becomes history while we live! - Ömer Madra

1 / A country outside of the global climate policy: Turkey - Ebru Voyvoda

2 / Climate change, securitarian policies and ghosts  - Özdeş Özbay

3 / Turkey's energy policy: Indigenous at home, Blue Homeland in the world - Emre İşeri

4 / The impact of climate crisis and fossil fuels on child health - Çiğdem Çağlayan & Funda Gacal

5 / We will see beautiful days, coal-free and sunny days - Elif Ünal

6 / Either capitalism or the future - Tuna Emren

7 / The three pillars of climate journalism: Science, politics, and social justice - Ece Baykal Fide

8 / Bringing science, struggle, and art together - Yasemin Ülgen

9 / Clean energy or betrayal? - Serkan Ocak

10 / It is time to say stop economic growth - Fikret Adaman & Gökçe Yeniev

11 / When climate refugees knock on our door - Mehmet Mücteba Göktaş

12 / How is a climate-resilient agri-food system possible? - Fikret Adaman, Duygu Avı, Umut Kocagöz, Gökçe Yeniev

13 / Climate crisis affects women, women affect climate struggle - Merve Özçelik

14 / Climate fiction in literature- Buket Uzuner

15/ Dr. Faustus and children in the age of fire- Ömer Madra

* This series of articles is published with the financial support of Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet) Journalism & Media International Center.