Myth and Heroes : Global Warming – a risk for our World – Myth or reality?

Myth and heroes

I am going to present today the notion “Myth and Heroes”. Firstly, I would like to give a definition of this notion.

A myth is any traditional story that are ostensibly historical, though often supernatural explaining the origins of a cultural practice or natural phenomenon. These stories are exaggerated or fictitious. A hero or heroine is a person who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through impressive feats of ingenuity, bravery or strength, often sacrificing his or her own personal concerns for some greater good.

To illustrate this notion, I choose to talk about Global Warming – a risk for our World – Myth or reality?

Since the dawn of time myths have questioned how the world will end.

During the year, we saw that this major event is a key element in most of religions, cultures and mythologies.

In Judeo-Christian religions, the end of world is represented by fire, lightening, God’s wrath and a final day of judgement. The book of revelation describes this apocalypse, the battle of Armageddon where many are killed before a golden age under the rule of heaven is restored.

In the Norse culture, Vikings believed that the world one day would end as we know it, they called this day for Ragnarök - the doom of the Gods and Goddesses. Everyone will die even the humans.

For the Hindu, the world is an unending cycle of death and rebirth. Shiva destroys the world first by fire ten by flood. But life is preserved in a golden egg, and the world will be reborn, only to repeat the cycle for eternity.

The Last day notion is also frequently put in scene in art as well as in literature.

Songs, novels, comics, movies and television shows often portray the future as bleak and dark and the unleashing of nuclear energy, the potential for genetically engineered diseases, the spread of terrorism have not improved this picture.

For example, Belgian cartoonist Hergé illustrated it in “ The Shooting Star (French: L'Étoile mystérieuse) - the tenth volume of comics series The Adventures of Tintin released in 1942. A giant meteoroid approaches the earth while a self-proclaimed prophet predicts the end of the world.

Another example using the same scenario is Armageddon, a science fiction movie directed by Michael Bay and released in 1998 where a group of specialists were sent by NASA to stop a gigantic asteroid on a collision course with Earth.

In both examples, the authors develop the theory of heroes who will save the world. The characters inspire us by giving us confidence and motivation to do the same in an equivalent situation.

The belief in a dark future and the hope for a new beginning seems to be a common human desire.

Our end-of-the-world obsession resulted also in multiples predictions based on wildest theories as eruption of a super volcano, explosion of a massive star, spread of deadly disease, deployment of nuclear weapons, computer takeover or death of the sun.

In recent decades, there have been speculations that global warming may cause the climate on earth to become like that of Venus. In a worst case, scenario that would make the planet uninhabitable, on the best

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