Obsidian Mirror- Catherine Fisher: Social Issue

The world is dying because of our greed.

One of the social issues in the book Obsidian Mirror, by Catherine Fisher, is environmental pollution. Janus, the antagonist, is overusing the power of a mysterious time traveling mirror called the Chronoptika. The consequence of its power is the youth of the world. The book involves, Sarah, a supporting character, who goes back into the past to destroy the mirror, but meets a man, Oberon Venn, who is obsessive over the mirror’s power, and Jake, the protagonist, who needs the mirror to bring back his lost father. Sarah needs to destroy the mirror before it explodes and sucks in all matter of space.

Janus is abusing the environment by greedily using the Chronoptika to change the past to his favor to make himself powerful and rich similar to how people take advantage of the Earth’s resources. With each journey into the past, the Chronoptika became more brittle, sucking in matter and light into itself at a terrible rate. It came close to exploding and creating a black hole which could possibly suck in the entire universe. This event reflects off of the real environmental issues of the world. I think Janus’ greediness represents all people of the world. We as humans become greedy to achieve what they want, and they become unaware of how much it’s hurting the planet they live in. We clear out forests with healthy trees to build skyscrapers or luxurious oasis that is not in our ‘survival needs’ list. We pollute out water, air and land with the products we make that we don’t necessarily need. It has come to the point where global warming is occurring with the polar ice caps melting, and holes in our atmosphere have appeared which lets in harmful UV rays. We decide to achieve things for our luxury without thinking about the negative affects it may have on the world we live in.

We as humans take but not give, and this abuse of environmental resources is a social issue that we must take a social action against. Many social actions are already in full action, such as the process of recycling and conserving our waste. Many electric cars are being introduced in hopes of decreasing air pollution caused by the fuels released into the by the vehicle. Many harmful factors that we make have been banned, but the world is still far from its recovery. If all of us contribute in any way possible, from a small action as stopping ourselves from littering, to an action as big as saving a whole ocean from oil leaks, we can prevent the world from faltering.