The Tower of Babel, appearing in Genesis 11 of the Old Testament, was built by arrogant humans in an attempt to reach the sky. The Creator mixed their languages, making it impossible for them to communicate with each other, and the tower's construction was never completed.
Brueghel’s “Tower of Babel” is a masterpiece that expresses the foolishness and limitations of humans who try to challenge God's realm. Let’s think about the “Tower of Babel.” As science and technology evolve rapidly, isn’t it possible that humans are forgetting the lessons of the past and building another Tower of Babel under the pretext of industrialization?
In November 2023, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) forecasted that the El Niño phenomenon that occurred that year would continue until April of the following year. In fact, many parts of the world suffered from record-breaking heat waves caused by El Niño in 2024. In Xinjiang, China, there were places where the surface temperature exceeded 70 degrees. In 2024, the number of tropical nights in Korea was 39 in Seoul, and the average temperature from June to August was 25.6 degrees, the hottest summer since meteorological observations began.
El Niño means little boy in Spanish. El Niño occurs due to the weakening of the trade winds blowing from the equator and is a phenomenon in which the water temperature in the Pacific Ocean abnormally increases. It changes to La Niña, an abnormally low sea temperature phenomenon, over 1 to 2 years. El Niño causes a decrease in fish catch, an increase in precipitation, and flooding in the eastern Pacific Ocean, and increases the frequency of droughts and forest fires due to the formation of high pressure in the western Pacific Ocean. In particular, wildfire damage was severe in Indonesia and northern Australia this year.
La Niña, which means "girl child," occurs when trade winds become stronger, opposite to El Niño, causing increased rainfall in the western Pacific Ocean and drought and wildfires in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The WMO predicted that La Niña will begin in the second half of 2024, causing cold waves in winter to hit many parts of the globe. El Niño and La Niña cause climate change, which has a major impact on the global ecosystem, agricultural productivity, and economy.
There are two leading causes of climate change: natural causes, such as changes in the Earth's orbit, changes in solar energy, and volcanic eruptions, and human causes, such as increased greenhouse gases due to excessive use of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, urbanization, and deforestation. In particular, human causes such as excessive resource consumption and environmental destruction in modern industrial societies are the main culprits in accelerating climate change.
As human intelligence has advanced and technology has become more sophisticated, engineering technology has developed more than ever, and humans armed with advanced genetic knowledge have reached the level of artificially processing the mysteries of life phenomena in laboratories and industrializing them. If humans become intoxicated by these results and cross the line they should not cross, they will become the protagonists of another Tower of Babel that will meet an unfortunate end.
Scientific progress without philosophy is like building a castle on sand; technological development without humanity and love for humanity is like drinking from a poisoned cup that gleams. Religious and philosophical reflection and reason must serve as red lights to prevent industrialization due to scientific and technological progress from becoming a runaway train heading toward a dead end without brakes. And right now.
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