Blue Angel Blues: We’re approaching the season when literal fighter jets swoop around our city like a playground, and some Seattleites are over it. The Airshow Climate Action coalition put up a new billboard on Rainier Ave that reads: “SAY NO TO BLUE ANGELS.” Think of the rescue dogs! Think of the military trauma! Or think of the 670 tons of carbon emissions they blow through in one weekend.
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Parades and fairs have always been about excessive use of energy. That we’re now considering this stands in tight contention with the meaning of tradition. Is there a correct answer here? I’m not qualified to say.
But Seafair sans Blue Angels isn’t … Seafair. Perhaps, in time, it will evolve, as will we (hopefully taking the national anthem out of sports games), but for now, give the kids – and maybe some parents – what they want. 670 tons with how much carbon we’re spewing makes a rounding error look significant.
Every sort of event like this has always produced waste; one need not look back further to the amount of literal horse shit from parades mere decades ago.
Pageantry is pageantry. But it means something to people, and to say “we’re wasting fuel” – well, what portion of society doesn’t?
Our understanding of the world changes. The sound of jets and the sound of fireworks triggers people with PTSD, especially vets. Why would we keep doing that knowing what we know? Pageantry should never outstrip health of the people.
I grew up in a state where fireworks were illegal. This seems a reasonable middle ground.
doncha just love feeling the ground shake beneath your feet while intense shrieking totally climate killing emitters of carbon roar overhead as a spectacular demonstration of democracy in action???
I’m not going to address your framing. It’s not as though Seafair is unique in any manner … hell, in Ashland, Ore., for the Fourth of July, fighter jets would fly down the Bear Creek valley from Klamath Falls to start the parade.
I take the bus. Do you? Because if not, the per-capita carbon emissions you’re ascribing to a couple of fighter planes is peanuts.
I do take the bus, bike, walk, stay home…
it’s a wonderful life
That’s of course wonderful. Having this sort of thing happen once a year doesn’t strike me as a huge concern.
