A Destroyed City Is A Ravaged Woman Essay Examples

Most philosophers have often expounded on the inevitability of truth. They say that it will set you free or it will always come to light. Nonetheless, what they do not tell people is that, the truth in most cases will turn your world inside out. It is for this reason that we have been trained by life circumstances to fake the truth, to deceive and to lie about it. However, as the philosopher says, when the truth at last comes to you, then you should have no option but to succumb to it, lest it will ravage you. All along my life, I have had numerous situations where the truth almost got the better part of me. In this paper, I will reference my life so as to give a broader position of how the world, specifically my country is being destroyed by the issue of climate change that is, unfortunately, being propelled by various controllable human activities. To further expound on my position, I will use the conceptual metaphor that a destroyed city is a ravaged woman, to explain the problem of climate change. Whereby, a woman is a symbol of the continuation of life and hope and, therefore, when she becomes ravaged, there would be no life and hope, just like in a destroyed city. I chose this conceptual metaphor because I fear that, if our country does not take all the necessary precautions against global change, we will, in the near future, be compared to a ravaged woman.
When I was in my Grade 10, I had a friend who decided to take the wrong path in life and would not listen to anybody’s advice. Previously, he was a responsible boy at school, always obeying school rules, and was an average performer in class. All this changed in the blink of an eye. He stopped spending much time with me and other three inseparable friends. I heard that he had joined another group of friends from a neighbouring school. Although we always asked him what the problem was, he always insisted that all was well but by the time we came to realise that the boy had joined a group of boys that taught him how to smoke marijuana it was already too late. He was already in love with what he was doing. He often got paranoid over nothing, saying that we were all against him. The danger he was causing to himself started to become evident, his eyes became red shot, and the performance in class greatly declined. Things started to go the right way when the school management and his parents intervened and sort for psychological help. It caught us by surprise when we came to learn that the boy had been doing this secretly for a whole year and a half. He had already started to develop some medical problems being associated with his lungs.
Although the boy was treated, and he no longer experiences any medical complications, this situation totally changed the course of his life. He was affected psychologically; his memory is nowadays not as good as it would have been, and also his speech was affected by the drugs that he used to take. This is a story that touches my heart. It was a huge learning experience especially for me; it was so sad that I had to learn from a friend. It opened my eyes to how some simple activities that may seem fun at the start might end up altering the life of a person. It shows how easy it would be if a person does not follow the advices given and how easy it normally is to make stupid decisions that may ruin a good course. According to my notion of conceptual metaphor, I choose this simple story that I experienced earlier in my life because it totally relates to the meaning of the conceptual metaphor I sought to discuss. If at all the boy could listen to the sound advice, if he could learn from the previous stories that have been usually told about young lives being lost to various irresponsible behaviours, he would not have suffered the consequences that followed later in his life.
Similarly, if America does not heed to the advice been given by scientists and environmentalist in regard to how to avoid causing climate change, it will become a destroyed city which is compared to ravaged woman. Arguably, the issue of global warming is the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced since we set foot on the face of the earth. It has become the greatest threat to our fragile ecosystem and all the living things that are in it. I recently read an article about how ice is melting in the North Pole thus making the habitat for the bears in that region unbearable. It also explained how this melting ice finds its way to the oceans thus creating unfavourable climatic changes. These are some of the effects that will in the near future devour our future. In fact, we have already started to feel the impact of our irresponsibility to the environment through the increase in natural calamities such as tornados, hurricanes and also droughts across the world and killing thousands of people when they occur. The major reason for these tragedies that are happening to mankind is as a result of the release of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) into the air. The gases go into the atmosphere whereby, when the heat from the sun get sucked inside the thick atmosphere. Therefore, when one drives his car, they should always remember that they contribute to the occurrence of the calamities that are befalling mankind. It would be better vehicles that do not emit gases are increased and subsidised by the government.
Of course the source of greenhouse gases does not only from the car emissions but any other combustion of energy such as industrial gases, burning waste materials among many other ways. I am particularly impressed with the Swedish government’s approach towards preventing further global warming. Since greenhouse gases have deadly consequences, Sweden recently set a goal of becoming a completely oil-free country. I saw in the news the minister of sustainable development in Sweden, saying that, “Sweden’s dependency on oil should be totally broken by the year 2020”. Although most critics say that this is a very ambitious goal that cannot be achieved, I believe that, with the good of the human race at heart, the government of Sweden will comfortably achieve this goal. In addition, even if it would fail to achieve this goal by the year 2020, it will have created to its citizen the idea of being less dependent on oil thus making its economy find alternatives sources of energy and also provoking other nations to follow suite. This is a move that should be welcomed by all other nations as a quest to end the death of millions of people.
I believe that the consequences of global warming are extremely devastating, and it causes innocent citizens all over the world suffer due to the inability to change their ways of life even after seeing the serious effects global warming can lead to. It is evident that fossil fuels is the major source of energy for people in earth, however, despite the fact that this source of energy is damaging the atmosphere, it is also non-renewable and therefore will become depleted soon. This calls for the urgent need to develop an alternative renewable and safe source of energy such as wind, hydro and solar energy. In addition, I am of the opinion that the respective governments in the countries that are fully dependant on fossil fuel should avail funds for research being measures that can be used to assist in discovering or developing new methods of providing energy. Although this endeavour might be a costly one, in the long run, the benefits of a climate change-free world will definitely be more than the negative consequences that befall man king if he does not heed to advice just like my former classmate who followed the wrong path by ignoring advice. But just like how my friend managed to change his destructive behaviours, it is still not too late to prevent further climate change.
I chose to base my argument on this conceptual metaphor is because it hurts a lot when millions of people die in Japan, middle-east and the country’s at the shores of the Atlantic due to Tsunami’s and other catastrophic events. The aspect of a destroyed city being equated to a ravage woman is because, a woman signifies life and hope, therefore when the woman is ravaged, it signifies the end of life and a great sense of hopelessness. I do not dream of a ravaged city, I believe that people from all walks of life will be able to join hands and prevent this problem. The high amounts of carbon are the principle reason why our planet has become very hot thus increasing the chances of floods, drought and other adverse weather conditions that ultimately hurt of health occurring. The good thing is that there exists solutions that can be used in cutting down the rate of carbon pollution. We only have to formulate policies that support the development of various types of clean renewable energy.
In conclusion, it is my opinion that this position paper that seeks to give my stand on the grave issue about climate change has adequately complemented my selected conceptual metaphor. It is the high time that the world leaders stopped ignoring calls by scientists and environmentalist about the issue of climate change. The freedom that comes with listening, accepting the truth and taking actions can never be underestimated. When we are ready to embrace the truth, we manage to disarm the other parties that might be opposed to us, and eventually liberate ourselves from death causing events that can be easily avoided. In general, we should all start ignoring the sceptical people who still do not believe that the natural events that are occurring in the world today are as a result of climate change The media should also take the role of informing the general populace about the dangers of poor human activities that can lead to the emission of greenhouse gases.