Mark Campbell
Today in our Medya News Podcast, we are talking about the single greatest threat to our planet and are joined by two environmental activists who are literally on the frontlines of the environmental struggle, one here in the UK, Dirk Campbell of Extinction Rebellion and Şoreş from the Make Rojava Green Again campaign in Rojava, (North East Syria).
Our planet is heating up. We are witnessing as normal, previously unprecedented events on such a scale, such as global forest wildfires, extreme flooding and weather events, that are caused by human behaviour like the chopping down of forests and burning of fossil fuels such as coal etc., which release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, causing the gases to be trapped in the atmosphere, heating up our planet to the extreme temperatures we are witnessing these days, and the prospect of really catastrophic events unseen in human history, and ultimately the future of our world as we know it hangs in the balance.
Such human activity in the pursuit of profit, is irresponsible. That’s not me saying this, it is a recent landmark United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report, the first of three reports that has been published ahead of an historically important conference, perhaps the most important conference of all of our lifetimes, an upcoming inter-governmental conference of climate change in Glasgow, Scotland on 1 November. The conclusions of the report are frighteningly stark.
Thousands of the world’s best climate scientists have worked for many years collating the results of extensive research and evidence that the world’s climate has heated as a result of human behaviour, by just over 1 degree centigrade causing the extreme weather, fires and floods that we are now seeing. And that it is irreversible, the heating of the oceans, the threat to the gulf stream and the consequences of climate change, such as the forced migration of millions of people as floods and fires seriously impact on people’s lives, is set to become a feature of our daily lives for everyone around the globe whether from a rich developed country or a developing country. We are all in the firing line and we all face an uncertain future.
Today I am joined by two environmental activists from two different parts of the globe, who are linked by a very special person. From the UK, Dirk Campbell an activist with the environmental campaigning group Extinction Rebellion, that has been at the forefront of urgently trying to raise awareness and give warnings of this catastrophic warming of the planet.
And of course listeners and readers also will know that Dirk Campbell is also the father of International Volunteer, Anna Campbell also known as Helin Qerecox who was killed on 15 March 2018, in the Kurdish city of Afrin by a Turkish airstrike while trying to protect the evacuation of Kurdish civilians from Afrin city. Anna was herself a passionate environmental activist, feminist and internationalist.
And with Anna Campbell/Helin Qerecox being the link, from NE Syria we are also joined by ‘Şoreş’, an environmental activist and International Volunteer from the International Commune’s campaign Make Rojava Green Again to discuss the campaign, the issues arising from the campaign, ecology and what if anything we as individuals or governments are able to do.
I began by asking Dirk Campbell to tell us how he sees the catastrophic situation facing us, and a little bit about the work of Extinction Rebellion, and what he wants people to do ahead of the upcoming conference in Glasgow. Dirk wanted to particularly highlight the next demonstration of Extinction Rebellion coming up in London 10am – Trafalgar Square – 23 August 2021. After Dirk, I asked Şoreş from the International Commune to tell us about the Make Rojava Green Again campaign, and the situation in Rojava in regards to social ecology.
