Amazing Pictures Pollution in China

My wife, Janet, and I, on occasion, drive down the New Jersey Turnpike through a section of oil refineries where the tortured geometry of the structures stands against the sky, and where waste gases burn off in eternal flames, and where a stench reaches us that forces us to close the car windows. And as we approached it once, Janet rolled up the windows, sighed, and said, "Here comes Mordor."
She was right. The Morder of The Lord of the Rings is the industrial world which is slowly developing and taking over the whole planet, consuming it, poisoning it. The Elves represent the preindustrial technology that is passing from the scene. The Dwarves, the Ents, and Tom Bombadil represent the various facets of Nature that are being destroyed. And the Hobbits of the Shire represent the simple, pastoral past of humanity.
And the One Ring?
It is the lure of technology; the seduction of things done more easily; of products in greater quantity; of gadgets in tempting variety. It is gunpowder, and the automobile, and television; all the things that people snatch for if they don't have them; all the things that people can't let go once they do have them.