Is The End of The World Coming?

Global warming, a phrase has already become a world-wide known concern nowadays. As being described, global warming itself means the observed and projected increases in the average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans. People are talking about how the world is getting hotter, unpredictable weather; too much rain at a time while on the other time there could be a very hot weather that feels like melting everything up. Thus, not only ends there, these events are being predicted by some of people as the indications of the end of this world civilization. Apocalypse, doomsday, and the end of everything they say through many aspects starting from science, theology, mystic, and many more points of view. 

Despite these theories people are talking about, global warming is still happening and the impact can be seen very clearly these days.  Although at the moment people are already complaining about what is changing from our dying earth, even more terrible predictions that are being made by scientists caused from global warming must become our concern. Two major effects are the increasing temperature on the earth about 3° to 5° C and the rise of sea levels will reach 25 meters by the year 2100. These surely will cause the increase of the frequency, duration, and intensity of floods while on some other times will cause the exact opposite which is droughts and heat waves, not to mention horrifying tornadoes.

There are so many effects of global warming in real examples. Katrina hurricane that hit United States on 2005 is one of the deadliest U.S. hurricanes since 1928 and the damage it caused was estimated around $81 billion.  More recently example is flood that hit Poland as it killed at least seven people and caused great devastation which could cost more than EUR 2 billion in form of losses for hundreds homes and evacuation process for thousands of people. Not to forget the latest one is the flood that hit Singapore on June 2010 that turned one of the famous areas Orchard Road into ‘Orchard River’.

These events somehow can also be seen through the eye of entertainment, especially in films. Although not really sure whether the films are inspired by these true calamity events or like some other believers who said that films are some sort of the prophecy of what might come in the future, one thing for sure is that there surely is a connection between catastrophic or post-apocalyptic movies with disasters that happen in our real world. Moreover, it is surely not a weird thing if the films cast flooding as one of the main reason that could leash apocalypse unto the earth we are living since the world itself contains water as ¾ of its division. As can be seen in “Waterworld”, a post-apocalyptic movie describes how the world has turned into one huge ocean with only very small amount of land and living creatures including human beings. This movie that was published in 1995 shows how the world faces its doomsday through great flooding caused by global warming and the melting of icebergs in south poles. Another movie that has similar theme is one with the title, “The Day After Tomorrow”, a 2004 film that depicts the catastrophic effects of global warming through a series of extreme weather events started with a very huge tsunami and followed by a new ice age. The point that can be made from these two films examples is even though they are merely fiction, but the theories of the doomsday are real and could just happen to our world.

As real as it can be, it is understandable that films are being made to chase the reality and put it into the fiction in order to touch the feeling and emotion of the audiences even more. However, sometimes the impact of the film itself can be overwhelming as in “2012”, a science fiction disaster film released in 2009. The film is about the 2012 phenomenon and its prediction which in that year there will be cataclysmic events based on Mayanism, the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar saying the world will ended in the year 2012. One of the most fearsome disasters in this movie is also about huge flooding that will cover the whole earth. By then, the fear of this calamity does not end there. For some people, they being affected by the film truly believe that this 2012 phenomenon will happen and this has caused so many discussions among believers, skeptics, and those who are on-lookers toward this matter.

Thus, regardless of these films predictions on what could happen to our earth; whether it is about the melting of iceberg, the coming of the new ice age, or even a very huge tsunami that could sweep away everything on this earth’s surface,  what is sure of that they all being predicted happen as the impact of global warming. These have already happened in small scale in our real world such as longer and more devastating floods, heat waves and drought that kill, iceberg is starting to melt in South poles, very cold winter with terrible blizzards, and also hurricanes. Still no matter what may come, we all know that global warming can be reduced for it is in our own hands, our own control. 

        Therefore, instead of worrying and being fearful towards the end of days, we should try more in fighting and preventing against these possibilities by caring our environments even more than we have done before. As in the ending of the catastrophic films, although the people in the movie must went through so many challenging problems and sufferings, they all won the battle against the deadly natural disasters and they could start to make their own happy ending. The happy ending that we all, human beings in this lovely world of ours, must become our primary goal in life, for the sake of ours and for our next generations.