World Health Organization defines health as complete mental, physical, and social well-being of the individual; that is, lack of a disability or illnesses are not necessarily implications of an individual’s overall health. Conversely, this definition involves being healthy in our social relations and the relationship we establish with the humanless nature, as much as being physically healthy.
The Turkish Thoracic Society accepts the view that in a world where ecological disasters are widespread and have become ordinary, and is considered a threat for the world’s future, taking nature with humans and without humans as detached from one another, or reducing one inside the other by dissolving it is not a truthful approach. This is because humans are a part of nature and it is impossible to disconnect humans and the nature from one another. Moreover, every intervention against humans and their civilizations is actually against nature, and similarly, every intervention against the humanless nature is in fact also against human nature.
The Turkish Thoracic Society is very well aware that humans do not own nature, they are merely a part of it. This perspective adopted by the Turkish Thoracic Society considers every interference that is detrimental to the health and harmony of the environment also has a direct influence on health of humans and other beings.
The Turkish Thoracic Society seeks positive and healthy future for both the human and the nature by freeing the human by way of the nature instead liberation of the human from the nature. Therefore, the Society recognizes that a healthy world is inherent in finding the ways and methods to free the nature with human without obstructing the human’s development potential.
“Develope or perish” mentality of the civilization we live in is moving the world rapidly to an unlivable state. The consequence of this reductive approach of perceiving development simply as economic is leading both humans and the humanless nature to an evolution into exhaustion. More importantly, the questions of development at a cost of what and for whom are no longer a part of the agenda. The Turkish Thoracic Society perceives that growth and development both on a national and global scale is taking place at a mental, physical and social cost, damaging the health of the majority for the sake of the minority in societies, and rejects this inequality. On the other hand, the Society recognizes that growth and development destruct humanless nature as a whole; its plants, wildlife, air quality, biodiversity, rivers, seas and climate and underlines that this destruction detriments health beyond repair-both at individual and social level.
The Turkish Thoracic Society defends that humans and nature should nourish one another in harmony, and development should not only try to achieve economic growth but biodiversity, unity in diversity and raising the quality of life as well. Therefore, The Turkish Thoracic Society emphasizes the necessity to guarantee basic human needs and economic and social security and to use eco technologies that can be monitored easily by citizens rather than necessitating a central and bureaucratic administrative apparatus. The technologies to be employed should be in harmony with nature, and energy should be entirely produced from renewable sources in ways that also enrich ecologic evolution.
Finally, as professional society aiming to develop national pulmonary health, the Turkish Thoracic Society is well aware that the solution to human induced ecological problems, particularly air pollution, lies in shifting the approach from “sustainable development” to “sustainable future and sustainable life”. The Society supports the necessity of such a change. In this context, The Thoracic Society defends the notion that if social and economic development is continued at the cost of environmental damage, which is an assurance of health, then it should not be evaluated “growth” and “development” as the society and future generations would be threatened.
The Turkish Thoracic Society imagines a life in happiness and peace in which the diseases developing due to environmental reasons are prevented, the need for physicians and drugs are at minimum, and health is measured beyond medical criteria, and continues its activities keeping in mind this imagination.