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Fireworks or Fireflies? Savoring Summer’s Wild Soul
Laura A. Weber
As Summer 2026 unfolds, celebrations of freedom often bring outdoor festivities complete with colorful explosions in the night sky — fireworks! Fireworks represent a storied history of thrilling displays and bone-rattling booms dating to c. 200 B.C.E., when during the Chinese Han Dynasty, people threw bamboo stems onto fire to ward off evil spirits, a modest bang. Later, during the Song Dynasty, the application of chemical substances to create colored smoke, silver sparkles and colorful flames used low-nitrate gunpowder and other substances to tint flames and smoke, including, for example, arsenical sulphide for yellow, copper acetate (verdigris) for green, lead carbonate for lilac-white, and mercurous chloride (calomel) for white. The mysterious explosions elicited exhilaration and awe. (Source) We are still exploding fireworks in the night skies in 2026 at a much larger scale. But at what expense?
Fireworks Display, video courtesy of Laura Weber, caught off-guard while strolling by a lake. Just a moment before, all was quiet. See if you can identify the insects singing.
Fireworks do not come without high environmental costs: Chemicals from fireworks don’t miraculously “evaporate.” The entire Earth, indeed all Earthlings breathe their remains. When burned and exposed to oxygen, chemical…
