I was searching for a programme that would give me holistic knowledge about all the current environmental themes, especially those tied to climate emergencies.
I've decided to join the Oxford Climate Emergency Programme to find all the knowledge I need to communicate environmental themes in a disrupted era. I knew that concerns and dilemmas regarding the environment, climates, and interest would increase, and I wanted to be fully prepared to have a suitable discussion with people devoted to best environmental practices. Oxford's programme stood out from the other options because of its vast and diverse amount of guest speakers and content. I was honoured to have an opportunity to listen to so many prestigious and highly skilled experts involved in practice and the best world cases.
I've gained so much knowledge, ideas, and helpful advanced solutions even though I consider myself environmentally oriented. I've felt that as an individual and as a company, we have to do more. So all my expectations regarding the programme were more than satisfactory. The programme met my expectations, and I found many parts of the programme helpful for many business cases in our company. I was acquitted when I could deliver exceptional fresh knowledge to our engineers.
What I have found the most challenging part of this programme was when we started to learn in the middle of the programme, there was the part that empowered us intending to survive the complex data. And before we started, I asked myself, why? Why do we need to empower ourselves? Why do we need to find and learn how to handle the data and information, and where are we as a society and as the environment? Where are we?
I wouldn't say I liked that we were going to put so much time into the part where we are learning how to calm down ourselves to be able to live normally with this data and humans that don't want to change their harmful practices and habits. And the other part is how to talk and convince people who need to be convinced in the right direction for the environment and a stable future. I thought this was useless knowledge and that we all should be durable, stubborn, and tough. Painful knowledge brought me so much truth about human behaviour and our environmental impacts that I needed to calm down and cope with the data and the future and the immense risk of human behaviour, egotism, and lack of solidarity.
The climate emergency will affect not only how much we can see of the world, as visibility decreases, but also what we see when we look outside, as the impact on the global landscape results in forced migrations and ugly changes to people's surroundings. Food will drastically change due to the climate emergency, and people will need to adjust to new foods while firm favourites become increasingly challenging and expensive to produce. Certain areas flowers already produce fewer fragrance molecules due to increased heat and air pollution. By 2050, humans may no longer be able to smell anything from these flowers. Other scents will likely include ash and smoke by the end of 2050. The increase in wildfires will mean millions more people could wake up to the smell of burning forests.
I was amazed when I got the feedback for my final assignment from Oxford's professors. That was unbelievably brilliant feedback that pushed even our company as a system operator regarding the directions we were working on at that time to find more data, results, broad areas, and solutions. My final work was also much better with the consistent help of outstanding and respectful professors in this programme. Feedback was fast every time. Our business has been impacted since undertaking this programme. We are implementing innovative solutions or recommendations and trying to behave towards the environment and people.
Since I've been in this programme, I have done many things differently in my private life. And I also set higher standards for my co-workers; I try desperately to change the culture that surrounds us. Because I strongly believe that personal and corporative behaviour towards the environment is the culture of every company and every individual.
I recommend that everybody considering this programme attend it and have their ears and eyes wide open. Because it all depends on us. We are the game changers, and knowledge together with a heart fulfilled with love and solidarity is the most powerful game changer.