Consequences of pride presented in a history lesson.
I came upon an online video today that recounted the events of a balloon festival held in Ohio, USA named the Balloonfest of 1986, which was organized as a publicity stunt for fundraising purposes.
Initially, the number of balloons aimed to be released was two million, however, the actual number of balloons launched was up to 1,429,643. This huge number of helium-filled balloons was enough for it to be entered into the Guinness Book of Records for the largest number of mass balloons released.
The video then on went to explain the consequences it had after the release of these balloons, which unfortunately coincided with a storm that day, and caused these inflated balloons to fall back down to land and caused the closure of airports, vehicle collisions on the roads, and water pollution in the days that followed.
Worst of all, the balloons that fell on the water hindered the search and rescue efforts by the coast guards to locate two missing fishermen who had been reported missing the day before, making the search efforts being called off due to the difficulty in finding them in a lake filled with floating balloons.
I too did not view this event in good light.
In the desire to make a publicity stunt for the city and to beat the world record of the highest number of released balloons, thoughts of the impact and what could have gone wrong in such events were overlooked.
Personally, for me, the environmental factors alone were a turn-off, as these latex balloons will take years to biodegrade due to the chemicals and dyes used in the materials. Not to mention the ingestion of small pieces of these balloons by wildlife on land and in the oceans, causing harm and death to these animals.
Even if there had been no rainstorm on that day, these balloons could have affected the visibility of air traffic should these huge masses of balloons float into air space that are used by airlines, risking human lives.
Reflecting further, I think sometimes we too can get carried away by an idea or our feelings, thinking it could be fun and maybe use such activities or events to showcase our capabilities to others or maybe bring attention to ourselves.
Details of potential impact and failures are not thought out, and voices of reason can be drowned out in our hurry and gusto to achieve such things.
It was a flashy, hyped-up event.
The only good I see in it was that because it was so ‘fun’, it brought together many of the city folks and school children to participate in it, volunteering to fill up the balloons. But the impact of it far outweighs the positive side of the Balloonfest.
This could be why this story left a bad taste in my mouth as I read it, as it deals with human pride in some aspect, to make it happen despite its risk. Also, the lack of competencies displayed by the organizers to review the potential risks.
I do hope society has learned from this case when we look back at history, and apply it even into our own day to day.
Be it having a gender reveal party, birthday party, or elaborate proposal setups and pranks, please, practice caution and be smart about it.