FFVII preempting Climate Change movement

We're all aware of the idea that Mako energy and all that is a metaphor for the way we mistreat our planet but parts of Final Fantasy VII seem to hint in an even stronger way towards the effects of climate change/global warming/take your pick. I don't know if Japan as a nation was particularly concerned with environmental sustainability in this time period but as a nation with high levels of development and yet such a fond attachment to the natural environment, I wouldn't be surprised if this was kind of a prompt to stop and take stock of what we could be losing.

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Alternatively, it's just smurfing cold at Icicle Inn for no reason.

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Originally Posted by Jiro

Alternatively, it's just smurfing cold at Icicle Inn for no reason.

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Never noticed this

D:


It's almost like FF 7 predicted some of the problems we have with the Earth right now, sixteen years ago.

I think it's just really cold at Icicle Inn and that line is a throwaway line. However, yeah, the climate change parallels were pretty neat. It would've been cool if they'd gone further and had actual climate change, or "dead" areas where plants won't grow that slowly spread as the Lifestream got sucked up into Mako Reactors.

Another idea is that FFVII is anti nuclear energy. Given that coal is the alternative fallen out of fashion, and the green glowing of mako and similarities in terms of reactors and the meltdowns...

I always saw mako as being synonymous with nuclear energy too. The reactors look more like I would think a fantasy nuclear reactor might look, and that Mako poisoning being a kind of radiation poisoning.

I think the Icicle Inn line is just a throwaway, but I always liked that FFVII had the environmental message included in it.

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Originally Posted by maybee

Never noticed this

D:


It's almost like FF 7 predicted some of the problems we have with the Earth right now, sixteen years ago.

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We had them 16 years ago too. It's just that fewer cared about it.

I always likened mako energy to fossile fuel, myself. The way the environment changes around them looks more like that sort of pollution than radioactive pollution. The area around Chernobyl is actually full of wildlife now.

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Originally Posted by Mirage

We had them 16 years ago too. It's just that fewer cared about it.

I always likened mako energy to fossile fuel, myself. The way the environment changes around them looks more like that sort of pollution than radioactive pollution. The area around Chernobyl is actually full of wildlife now.

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The only point where the mako=fossil fuels comparison falls down is when the Corel parts happen, though I suppose that can be seen as more about corporate (and individual) greed than an environmental concern. Mind you, Kalm is pretty bogus since their mines went out of business too.

In a way, you could look at it like Mako energy is representative of agency, the state of being in the act of changing your environment.

Any action is by nature a destructive action. It is only by resting that anything is created, regenerated, nurtured.

Mako energy represents the power to take action in the universe around you. You want to light something on fire? Fire materia. You want to heal somebody's wound? (You might say that this is an instance of action being regenerative? An exception, maybe, but you do have to destroy the current state of woundedness in order to generate the state of being healed. Not to mention once you heal him, Cloud is going to do Omnislash.) You can do it! Yeah baby!

So nuclear energy is the fullest extent of that ability we have discovered as of yet in the universe we know. The sun generates thermonuclear reactions regularly, as do all stars of that type. The point is, power must not be taken lightly. Or, as Spider Man would say, "with great power comes great responsibility."

Oh man, we should totally have slapped that image all over Facebook on Tuesday. Missed a trick. Damn.

I think likening Mako to nuclear energy is particularly interesting since the core of Earth is molten magma heated by radioactive metals like uranium. If that core were to stop, we'd lose our magnetic poles. We'd lose atmosphere. We'd be bombarded by cosmic rays and die. We'd turn into Mars - a planet with no magnetic core :(

Yeah nuclear energy is pretty powerful stuff! If only we had ways to neutralize radioactive fallout like in Ghost in the Shell...