07/05/2025
On 4th July, a point to ponder - Silent Fireworks don’t exist
Every time I post about fireworks, there are comments encouraging the use of ‘silent fireworks’. So today here's a post specifically about them. Please do not promote them on this page.
For starters, why is there an assumption that lighting up the sky as bright as daytime at a time when those who survive outdoors have found safe places to roost or sleep or spend the night, is NOT a source of terror and panic? Why is there this assumption that only the noise aspect needed to be addressed? I did some investigating.
First of all, I found that the ‘silent’ idea is a myth - one that I’d heard so often myself that even I had begun to think it might be fact. It’s not.
There is no such thing as ‘silent’ fireworks but some companies sell what they promote as ‘low noise‘ fireworks.
Now given that the hearing of many species is way beyond the range of humans, arbitrary reductions not borne out by any scientific evaluations – and these are not - will almost certainly not resolve the issue of noise-induced stress and/or hearing damage for all the victims of humanity’s ‘entertainment’. While we can evaluate the hearing of dogs and some other species, the many others who suffer from the practice are still relatively unknown to us.
A particular red flag for me was when suppliers’ advertising talked of ‘media scaremongering’ and suggested that for 'proper info', one should speak to them because they’re the ‘experts’. Yeah, right. They’re also the people who want your cash and it’s shopping 101 that the person who wants your cash will tell you whatever you want to hear so they can get it. We all know that.
Not surprisingly, the same ingredients are used in any kind of firework These include the toxic metal particles that give them their colours and other noxious pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and microscopic soot particles. Upon combustion, many chemicals and small minerals are released into the air. Leftover particles that fall to the ground can pollute waterways and pose a risk to all living creatures.
In fact everywhere I looked for information I found a familiar pattern of a species with a fixed idea in their heads looking for a right way to do something fundamentally harmful and wrong.
Everywhere I looked I found suppliers downplaying the risks and scientists, environmentalists and animal experts saying the opposite.
The answer is shouting in our faces. Just stop thinking about trying to 'reduce' harm, when it's so simple to stop it altogether. Stop supporting fireworks and find another form of entertainment.
https://theresanelephantintheroomblog.wordpress.com/2021/10/18/fireworks-harmless-fun-or-wanton-destruction/
Image is of birds lying dead and dying in the streets of rome following fireworks
