AM Inspiration: Villains Recast as Heroes - A Modern Aesop and Climate Change

by Kim, July 23, 2009 at 6:00am

Climate change: it's affecting flora and fauna, glaciers and hurricanes, but our fairy tales may also be turned upside-down in our warming world. Take the Aesop fable The Wind and the Sun about the two forces competing to see who could induce a traveler to take off his cloak. The Sun's victory was meant to illustrate the concept "Kindness effects more than severity." Watch the adorable 1977 animated version of the fable below to get an idea of how much Nature's villains and heroes have been turned on their heads.

In an age ruled by an overzealous sun, it's hard to see it cast as the benevolent character. How would a modern-day Aesop rewrite the fable? The sun, provider of clean solar power as well as too-hot, too-long summers, might be more like the volatile wind persona depicted in the video. The wind could be symbolized by the tall, graceful, patient windmills we expect to see in a modern wind-farm--creating energy in a low-impact manner that resembles the gentle coat-removing force of the fable's sun. There could be some tension created by the possible dampening effect global warming may be having on wind power. Our modern fable would still be about the tension between "kindness" and "severity", but humans would take a more active role, courting the "kind" natural resources/energy sources in a strategy to mollify the "severe" natural momentum created by climate change. And maybe the cute birds in the cartoon would be substituted by penguins or some other species that--since they can't "take off their coats"--must respond in some other manner to the force of the sun. Migrating? Adapting?

What other changes would you make to update the fable?