London Fireworks Display Cost 26 Million Tetanus Vaccines
This year saw one of the most fantastically extravagant fireworks displays in Britain’s capital since the turn of the millennium, but at what price?As I’m sure people in the UK will have seen recently on TV, Pampers are currently running a campaign with Unicef to buy Tetanus vaccinations for mothers and their babies in Africa. The add (cleverly) does its little bit and then states; 1 pack, 1 vaccine. What you may have noticed however, is that a small legal disclaimer that flashes up on the screen at this point states ‘1 vaccine = 5p’ in other words 5 British pence, or about 10 US$ cents.
Now I’d like to mention at this point that pampers are being a bit Jewish in their maths, I mean come on, 5 PENCE - push the boat out! 1 pack, enough vaccines for a family of 4 - would only equate to a whole 20p donated per pack sold. But I digress, we will skip over this small fact, at least pampers are doing SOMETHING to help.
A couple of days ago the nation’s capital celebrated the birth of 2008 along with the rest of the world, and put on a fireworks display that was nothing short of incredible, and don’t get me wrong - I really enjoy watching floods of golden rain once a year.. but… and there’s a big but.
This year’s fireworks display cost 1.3Million pounds, and lasted 10 minutes, which equates to ?130,000 being set on fire for each of those minutes, quite literally.
Using the given prices above ?1.3M could have funded 26,000,000 Tetanus vaccines for the very same campaign.
Is it just me or does it seem slightly absurd that we go on and ON about the environment and how we should reduce carbon emissions in all vehicles, yet, how many ‘environmentally friendly’ fireworks do you know of? I don’t know of any, and I’d imagine that ?1,300,000 worth of explosive material and smoke probably leaves a relatively large carbon footprint behind.
Personally I would have quite happily accepted NO fireworks in London this year, in return for 26Million vaccines for Africa, and at least a month’s REST from documentaries boring me with ‘Save The Planet’ information in an infuriatingly repetitive manner. Its a win-win.
I’m not saying there should be no new year, I’m not saying there should be no celebration, I’m saying why not cut out the fireworks in ONE city on the planet in order to help the rest of the world FOR the new year.
Written by MrAngry on January 3rd, 2008 with
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#1. January 3rd, 2008, at 11:23 PM.
It’s all wrong, who cares about Fireworks on New Years Eve, the sensible people are smashed senseless anyway.