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Blue Angel Blues (www.seattletimes.com)

submitted 1 week ago by griff@lemmings.world to c/usnews@beehaw.org

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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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[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 1 points 1 week ago (7 children)

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?

[–] Vodulas@beehaw.org 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 1 points 1 week ago

I grew up in a state where fireworks were illegal. This seems a reasonable middle ground.

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