Foreword
In 2019, the European Parliament declared a global ‘climate
and environmental emergency’. This followed an eruption
of public pressure (fuelled by righteous anger) designed to
pressurise global leaders into addressing the reality of the
unfolding climate catastrophe. Although climate-related
citizen activism first evolved in the 1990’s, over the last two
years we have seen a major escalation in direct action with
an unprecedented series of rolling school strikes and more
generalised mass protest initiatives bringing city centres
around the world to a standstill. To accompany this pressure on global decision
makers, we also, of course, need to make radical adjustments to our own behaviour
in both our personal lives and in our public interactions with the places where we
study, work or go for leisure.
Although this, by itself, is by no means a sufficient response to the most pressing
disaster of our times, we will from now on publish our CommitTED journal in
electronic format. By using less paper, we will be minimising our negative impact
on forests, reducing our use of energy resources and also limiting our carbon
footprint… In short, this is an early salute to the annual World Free Paper Day on
6th November. In the words of the headline from a September 2019 article in the
Guardian newspaper, ‘Tiny changes might seem insignificant. But they are how we
save the planet’.
Sevinç ATABAY
Turkish Education Association General Director