Make you Fink on Friday

Wow! New Year went with a bang… all over the world.

It started in New Zealand with the magnificent display from the Sky Tower.

Sky Tower, Auckland, NZ

New Year celebrations crept around the world for a whole 24 hours.

It finally got to Rio de janeiro, then continued on to the US and Pacific.

Copacabana Beach in Rio has the biggest New Year party in the world, more than 2 million people on 6½kms of beach between Leme and the Copacabana Fort.

They were treated to a magnificent aerial display of fireworks. Twenty-four tons of fireworks produced a display over 16 minutes.

How much carbon dioxide was added to the atmosphere with this frivolity?

I have no idea, but considering that fireworks use gunpowder, I’d hazard a guess at lots.

Copacabana Beach – Pretty, but deadly

But Rio had about nine (I haven’t checked the actual figure) similar or lesser displays around the city from Niteroi to Sepetiba; along with thousands of neighbourhood displays. My own neighbourhood was blowing tons of gunpowder into the air for longer than the Copacabana display.

And the rest of Brazil, all the capital cities had their displays, and undoubtedly minor cities in each of the 26 states and Federal District also had their displays.

Now the amount of carbon dioxide is mounting up.

How much more CO₂ did the rest of the world add?

NZ, Sydney, Hong Kong, Japan, all over Europe, Britain, USA and the Americas, totalled, that’s a hell of a lot of gunpowder.

Isn’t it high time that events like this that produce CO₂ and other pollutants were banned?

Are we taking this issue too lightly?

Cities that used LED and projected light displays are to be congratulated, even if they used this form for the wrong reasons.

Maybe the rest of the world should follow suit; and go electronic with music instead of the traditional need for BIG BANGS.