‘According
to Greek mythology, Prometheus gave humanity the gift of fire. For this
transgression against the god Zeus, Prometheus was chained to a rock, where an
eagle continually preyed on him.’ I heard this story from my grandmother. She
said that the ’fire’ does not really mean a fire but it represents ‘Knowledge’.
After the human possessed fire, they used it and fried meats, building houses,
making clothes and creating weapons and other useful things for humanity.
Knowledge was the best gift for humans from Prometheus.
When
I heard this story I was young, I thanked Prometheus. He sacrificed his life
for humanity. Because of him, we had knowledge. We can learn, we can read and
write, we can discover new worlds and we can create many unbelievable things in
our world. Because of him, we live secure, we do not need to worry about any
danger as the life of wild animals.
By
using fire there were man-made weapons developed, then human became hunters. They
became the killers of wild animals. There were many records in history about
humanity. They killed dodo (flightless and undisturbed bird in the world) for
food until their life went missing forever. Snow leopard needs a large hunting
territory. Human are hunting them for the fur trade. North American bison
almost wiped out by hunting. Poachers in Africa kill rhinos for their horns.
The Siberian tiger needs protection from hunters. Billions of passenger pigeons
lived in North America until hunters began killing pigeons for food. Between
1850 and 1880 the vast flocks vanished and the last passenger pigeon died in a
zoo in 1914. There are many rare animals extinct and endangered by the hand of
humans. In 1989, more than 5,000 species listed as endangered by the
International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
Human
used fire for their needs. They used fire for not only killing animals but also
used in other technologies. They dig earth and carried oil from beneath the
earth. They built factory in the ocean and brought oil for their trade. If
there were accidents in the ocean, the oil spilt and it destroyed many lives of
fishes and seabirds. Seabirds that come into contact with the greasy surface of
oily water cannot fly because their feathers become clogged with oil. We
watched the news on TV and we felt unhappy for them. In 1989, Exxon Valdez
oil-spilt in Alaska was not the first oil-spilt but it raised public awareness.
German-born American physicist
Albert Einstein is best known for his work on relativity. Einstein was one of several concerned
physicists who collaborated on letter to President Roosevelt, informing him of
the possibility of an unimaginably powerful and dangerous new weapon: the
atomic bomb which was based on the theory by Einstein in 1905 with the
simple-looking algebra equation: E=mc2. ‘A
single bomb of this type exploded in a port might very well destroy the whole
port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might
very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air.’(from Einstein's Letter to Franklin D.
Roosevelt) Although
he discussed the dangers faced by the world by the invention of the atomic
bomb, Einstein's letter
undoubtedly helped to convince President Roosevelt that the United States had
to develop its own atomic weapons program quickly. The atomic bomb is powerful
explosive nuclear weapon. The readers could see how this weapon dangerously
used by man throughout history.
The
loss of not only animals but also our natural resources is the most serious
threat to endangered natural wealth. Most of them were destroyed by the hand of
human. There was no veto for humanity for banning these crimes. I had an idea
that if unbound Prometheus and let him take back a fire from humanity, it might
be had a better life for our natural world.
Comments
Post a Comment