The Myth
Earth was once impure with molten lava and a toxic atmosphere, then the Greek gods came purified it with pure nature; by filling the Earth with land, water, and living beings. In the environment of molten lava and toxic air, no life can survive, and lava and toxic air was deemed as part of the “dead” category by Greek gods. Anything that is made from something “dead,” was deemed impure by the Greek gods. As dinosaurs once roamed the earth and died, along with the millions of plants that have died, fossil fuels were created from these dead beings and buried deep beneath the earth due it being deemed impure by the Greek gods. With the rise of humans, the gods warned humans for many years to not access these resources as punishment would arise for using them. Along with not using these impure sources, the Greek gods also warned humans to be resourceful and not exhaust the resources that Gaia, the earth god, provides but, learn to preserve and manage with what they have. However, over the years humans have become greedy and selfish with resource management, and in doing so, the gods have eradicated civilizations despite warning them to be wise when using certain resources. The gods have told humans throughout many years that when certain resources are used way too much, it brings out evil spirits into the world, such as greediness and selfishness. As humans all over the world start to build empires, humans have exhausted resources which caused the extinction of many civilizations. For example, when the people of easter island try to place the stone faces on their island, they used the method of deforestation to transport these faces (Mongabay, n.d.). The gods then punished them with lack of food with the extinction of many trees, which ultimately led to their death. Just as the gods warned us throughout humanity, the people of easter island were warned as cutting trees would cause an imbalance on earth. As many years pass, we are in the current time, where humankind are not only exhausting resources such as, by cutting down plenty of trees but, also using resources that the gods find impure to the earth and bring evil to the planet. The “dead” resources such as oil are currently being used and this will bring destruction to the planet. The gods have noticed the overuse in these impure resources and decided to set a timer in which the hotter the earth becomes through global warming, in which the if humans do not change their methods by transitioning from these “dead” sources, then humans will doomed for extinction by the Greek gods.
Analysis of Climate Change
As western civilization develops through the industrial revolution, humans from these civilizations have been using impure sources such as oil and coal (Hone, 2020). This has prospered human civilization but, the gods have been mad that humans have been using these “dead” sources. In return the gods have been punishing this world with the notion of global warming, and many people in this world have realized this warning and desire to use cleaner energy to cleanse the world from these “dead” resources and bring stability back into the world. But many human rulers in this world have become greedy for the exploitation of oil and let their evil desires to not fulfill selfless reasons. It wasn’t just oil that was the issue but other issues of destroying the environment that Gaia created was being tarnished by humans. Chemicals are being forged in the use of selfish profits to pollute areas, causing disruption amongst the purity of the earth set by Gaia. The god Poseidon, who is the god of the seas, has seen this, and decided to raise the water levels to teach people that using these impure methods to survive is not right. Poseidon has done this in a gradual manner that if humans change their ways of living, the rising water levels will stop. But, if they don’t stop, then Poseidon will raise the water levels to submerge all lands of Earth as a cleansing process and destroy all civilization and create newer ones who will learn from this example. While Poseidon is submerging the lands, Zeus who is the god of the sky, realizes that certain impure gases are being released into the earth immensely such as methane and carbon dioxide, and as the ruler of the sky, Zeus has blocked these gases in our atmosphere to teach humans what negative impacts these gases can cause the environment. One can understand this in Hesiod’s Works and Days, when Prometheus deceived Zeus and gave humans the ability to create fire to help prosper the human civilization, Zeus decided to punish Prometheus for defying his authoritative rule and unleashed evil upon mankind (Hesiod, Works and Days, 42-58). This myth relates to the case of global warming since even though humans use these impure methods to further prosper the human civilization, they are still being disobedient to the gods and despite one’s intentions, the gods will punish humans as their rules are absolute. These two gods have created restrictions that even if the current generation of humans passes away, they ensured that the future generations of humans also face these repercussions if they continue with these impure ways. By doing so, the current generation of people have to worry about the situation in order for their offspring to not suffer in the distant future.
Another factor that caused the gods to bring global warming to earth is that humans are overusing the resources given to them by Gaia. Just as the people in easter island perished from deforestation (Monogaby, n.d), the gods wanted humans to not overexploit resources but to let them regenerate and give time for Gaia to replenish. If Gaia isn’t replenishing properly, it will be the humans’ fault for overusing her resources and thus, Gaia will not give resources in return. Not only resources such as plants but, also animals as well, as animal habitats are being destroyed by oil industries and by the process of deforestation (World Wildfire Fund, n.d). By disrupting the earth with negative impurities, other humans across the earth will be affected, and Gaia was created to help mankind to be provided. Certain nations who do not have privileges of using certain resources, have been affected by the gods outrage, and the gods also determine whether if humans should be given another chance if privileged nations do decide to care for poorer nations. However, the people who are in power in privileged nations are greedy and willing to sacrifice other nations for selfish reasons (Center for Global Development, nd.). In return the gods will punish them, and for example, in 2019, a nation named Australia has suffered from a great wildfire (British Broadcasting Television, 2020), by the god Zeus for being selfish and using, “dead,” resources in the expense of other nations suffering from Australia’s greediness. Similarly, another country known as the United States have suffered greatly with wildfires in the west coast for overexploiting oil resources, causing the west coast to continuously experience wildfires on a yearly basis (Congressional Research Service, 2021). This is similar to the notion when Kronos was eating all of Gaia’s children in order for him to maintain his greed for power, in which Gaia punished him by giving birth to Zeus who was set to defeat Kronos and to allow Gaia’s children to prosper (Hesiod, Theogony, 462-491). This relates to the aspect of global warming since, Gaia is also working with the other gods to punish humans for being too greedy when overusing her resources and preventing others from prospering. When acting greedy and selfish by destroying other people’s livelihoods and animal habitats, the gods will always bring punishment on privileged humans who benefit from the demise of other humans and animals.
With newer generations of humans willing to influence a positive change for the planet by being more eco-friendly (Ballew et al., 2019), Gaia has taken that into consideration and were willing to give humans more time. With Gaia’s recommendations, she had a conversation with Zeus and Poseidon about giving more time for humans to change. After further discussions, both gods agreed with Gaia and gave humans more time to change. We see this similar notion in Hesiod’s Theogony, in which Gaia wants to preserve the future generations of gods rather than Ouranos destroying them (Hesiod, Theogony: 155-170), and similarly this notion could be understood in the context of humans by wanting to preserve human civilizations. After agreeing with Gaia’s plan, Gaia then gave humans more time by spreading a virus known as Covid-19. Once the virus had spread and made the world go into a pandemic, it allowed Zeus and Poseidon to become more lenient as greenhouse gases emissions reduced and the rate of water levels decreased as well since, these “dead” resources were being less used during the pandemic. This allowed humans to have more time to replenish the world with cleaner energy. This is similar the time when Zeus planned to eradicate all humans but decided to saved Deucalion and Pyrrha, since they were the only humans to obey to the Greek gods, while the rest of the human race were self-centered and forgotten the authority of the Greeks gods; and therefore, decided to spare those who were obedient as a reward for their loyalty (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 253-347). Similarly, we see this in this context where Zeus and Poseidon are acting lenient towards the human race since many people have took the initiative to collectively change the way humans use their resources; which is something the Greek Gods would want. However, by giving humans more time to replenish the earth, Gaia needed a sacrificial condition for overexploiting her resources and impurifying her, which was the millions of deaths caused by the virus. Gaia’s intentions after the pandemic are that humans will start to use more purer forms of energy to sustain themselves and act more sustainable, if not, the gods will continue to inflict damage on the earth on a more exponential rate. If humans from more privileged nations still continue to use, “dead,” resources, the gods will deal more exponential damage to them for their selfishness. The Greek gods expect effective action from these nations and help bring stability into the world as they have been privileged with great power. Based on the amount of damage that has been brought by human beings, the Greek gods will give another hundred years once the pandemic passes to fully resolve this matter. If nothing is done by then, then all of humanity is deemed to be wiped out by the gods. This was a part of the agreement Zeus and Poseidon vouched for with Gaia when they discussed about the potential idea of preserving human civilization. This relates to the ancient myth that Zeus once foretold in the creation of the iron age of men, in which as mankind delves into further evil, they will one day perish (Hesiod, Works and Days, 174-201). In this sense, if mankind continues to pursue in these evil and impure sources of non-renewable energy, Zeus might one day eradicate all mankind; therefore, fulfilling what he has mentioned regarding the iron age of men (Hesiod, Works and Days, 174-201). As Zeus and Poseidon wait patiently for about a hundred years, it is now time for humans to unite and save the planet.
References:
“Australia fires: Almost 2,000 homes destroyed in marathon crisis.” British Broadcasting Corporation, 7 January. 2020. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51015536
Ballew, Matthew, Marlon, Jennifer, Rosenthal, Seth, Gustafson, Abel, Kotcher, John, Maibach, Edward, and Leiserowitz, Anthony. “Do younger generations care more about global warming?” Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, 11 June. 2019. https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/do-younger-generations-care-more-about-global-warming/
“Climate Change.” Center for Global Development. https://www.cgdev.org/topics/climate-change Accessed on 7 Mar. 2021.
“Consequences of Deforestation on Easter Island.” Mongabay. https://rainforests.mongabay.com/09easter_island.htm Accessed on 7 Mar. 2021.
Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Theogony. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0130%3Acard%3D139
Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Theogony. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Retrieved from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0130%3Acard%3D453
Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Works and Days. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Retrieved from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0132%3Acard%3D174
Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Works and Days. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Retrieved from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0132%3Acard%3D42
Hone, David. “From the Industrial Revolution to Climate Change: What Happened and Why?” 2041 Foundation, 19 October. 2020. https://2041foundation.org/climate-change-what-happened-and-why/
“Oil Gas Development.” World Wildlife Fund. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/web_sources.html Accessed on 7 Mar. 2021.
Ovid. Metamorphoses. Brookes More. Boston. Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Retrieved from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D253
“Wildfire Statistics.” Congressional Research Service, 4 Jan. 2021. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/IF10244.pdf
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