I can’t be the only one who becomes distressed each Fourth of July when the fireworks start. I know that the animals do because I came across three dogs that had bolted from their homes in fear and my own dogs cower with anxiety from the vibrations that to them feel like bombs dropping.
An article in last week’s Los Angeles Times regarding fireworks headlined “Lovely, but Loaded with Pollutants” noted that “Public Health Officials mentioned coughing, sore throats and burning eyes and warned that people with heart problems, or respiratory diseases, such as asthma, should avoid the smoky celebrations, staying upwind or indoors.” Hospital Admissions said deaths increase whenever particulate levels rise.
Did you realize that fireworks are made of poisonous metals, oxidizers, fuels, barium and perchlorate and other toxins? That they are a severe source of pollution and with five barges off of Malibu can you imagine how this also affects the life in our ocean when the poisons trickle down?
Of course when I mentioned my concerns to my sister, she said, “Oh Valerie, fireworks are America.”
Then I thought about America’s war in Iraq and the fact that bombs have been going off for years there. The United States of America has used over 1500 tons of depleted uranium in Iraq because DU is dirt cheap.
For those who pack up care packages for our soldiers will you be there for them when they come home sick and denied care by the very government which never warned them of the dangers they were facing nor has the money and health care for them. If their children are born with deformities caused by radiation poisoning, will the government that exposed them offer them help?
We live in a culture of denial and what our country is doing is really a crime against humanity. Three trillion dollars is what they say this war will cost in Iraq (known as the “Cradle of Civilization”) but the true cost in life and suffering is truly immeasurable.
It is just hard for me to sit back and enjoy fireworks because so many other thoughts go through my mind.
Valerie Sklarevsky