[email protected] need his cell
By Dr. Vi Nguyen, Dr. Adam Aron and Andrew Meyer
I can’t add Vi Nguyen as author – everytime I add it the name Paul Krueger comes up.. can someone else try?
Standing on the beach near Lifeguard Tower 23 you can hear the mesmerizing murmur of the ocean waves, the party scene on the Pacific Beach Boardwalk, and, this year, the high-pitched calling of thousands of elegant terns. From sunup to sundown, elegant terns head out to the ocean to fish for small anchovies and then head back to their mates and newly-hatched chicks on West Ski Island in the heart of Mission Bay.
Over 8,000(LINK) pairs of elegant terns are nesting on the island for the first time anyone can remember, and it’s a reminder that we share Mission Bay and so much of our coast with hundreds of other species that need a place to nest and rest. It’s a pat on the back to all of us that use Mission Bay, that these terns chose the island as an inviting place to nest, and it’s an opportunity to improve our stewardship of the Bay so that they come back next year.
And so it was horrible to see tens of dead elegant terns and eggs washed ashore on July 6th, after two big firework shows in Mission Bay and a weekend full of boats and parties near this nesting site. Indeed, published research has already shown bird deaths following recreational firework use in other wetlands. The City has also permitted a thunderboat race in a month that will encircle a protected tern nesting preserve.
Fireworks also have impacts on human health, especially for the families that gather near Mission Bay. Publicly available data show that tiny inhalable particles of pollution (PM 2.5) are higher around Mission Bay in comparison to Del Mar (which is roughly the same distance from the ocean and freeway) during the fireworks. According to the California Air Resource Board, these increased levels put nearby children at risk for asthma exacerbations, and adults at risk for pulmonary disease exacerbations and cardiac events. Pregnant women and toddlers are at particular risk, because the metals that give fireworks their bright colors (including lead, a well known neurotoxin), have effects on childhood development. It has also been shown that PM 2.5 exposure early in life relates to a higher risk of later psychotic experiences, anxiety, and depression.
Another major problem with these fireworks is that they normalize a societal attitude that pollution is ok. When hundreds of thousands of citizens are treated to this nightly spectacle of firework pollution, is it any wonder that they shrug their shoulders at the City’s failure to implement the greenhouse gas emissions goals within its Climate Action Plan? Is it any wonder that they take no heed at the new fossil gas-powered kitchens in the convention center expansion, the diesel-powered leaf blowers and cutters that are still used by nearly all city landscaping crews, the vast diesel and gasoline vehicle fleets still used by city crews – all of which contribute to San Diego being the 8th worst city for air pollution according to the American Lung Association.
With the social normalization of this pyro-metallo-mania by SeaWorld can we really expect the public to constrain the rogue scientists who are currently planning to spray aluminum nanoparticles into the atmosphere to deflect sunlight as a last-ditch strategy to counteract global heating?
Earth is a living being, a patient, whose health depends on the health of her organs, including estuaries, bays and species such as elegant terns. If we continue to degrade Earth she will die of organ failure. In San Diego, we have the chance to improve the patient’s health: please let us stay away from West Ski Island while terns are nesting, investigate light show alternatives, and stop poisoning ourselves with nightly fireworks.
Nguyen, M.D, and is the co-founder of San Diego Pediatricians for Clean Air and lives in Pacific Beach. Aron, Ph.D., is a professor at UC San Diego and a climate and ecological activist who lives in North in Park. Meyer is the director of conservation at San Diego Audubon Society lives in Pacific Beach.
