You know that song “We didn’t start the fire?” Yeah, it was wrong- we totally did. And by “we” I mean the hormone-crazed mothers-to-be that think pink and blue explosions will somehow soothe the chaotic estrogen pumping in their body.
Gender reveals are a Pinterest dream and a Twitter nightmare, because they can sometimes be the most beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, extravagant declarations of an unborn child’s gender, but they also face backlash in the form of threads of people yelling at dad’s who don’t seem quite as happy that they’re not about to have the next high school’s star quarterback born into the family. Beyond that, usually under one gender reveal video is about one thousand people making fun of it.
Only recently, however, have gender reveals decided to ditch cutting open a cake to find out their child’s gender, and instead have upgraded to huge parties, grand displays, and unfortunately for California, pyrotechnics.
In case you haven’t heard, on September 5th, an undisclosed family was out with the intent of having a gender-reveal photoshoot at Yucaipa’s El Dorado Ranch Park in California and thought it would be a good idea to use smoke bombs in the only state that seems to constantly be on fire (for the aesthetic, of course, I’m sure).
What ensued afterwards was a chaotic call for evacuations, road closures, and ending public visitation to national forests in California temporarily.
As of September 15th the fire started by the device had covered almost 18,000 acres but it was about 60% contained, according to Fox 11, Los Angeles.
So, that kid (who we still don’t know the gender of) is coming into this world with quite a legacy.
More than that, though, they’re coming into a world that has been perpetuating the much bigger problem that led to the insanely large fire in the first place — climate change.
Since 1880 the world has warmed 1.9 degrees and only continues to warm at an exponential rate, meaning it’s getting hotter faster as time passes.
The hotter and drier conditions created by global warming are the main cause for the accidental fires people start when doing anything from jackhammering up some sparks to lighting up a mystery-colored smoke bomb.
Not only that, though, but the increased temperatures and lack of humidity sets the stage for an increase in lightning production — the natural fire-starter.
Beyond even the national view from California, though, it seems several areas around the world are burning due to this exponential increase in global warming that people have caused.
From the Arctic and Siberia, to Brazil and Argentina — fires are burning everywhere. It’s a result of things like deforestation, slash-and-burn farming methods, and the overall man-made climate change issue that has led to the hot and dry conditions that cause devastating fire seasons across the world and make it so much easier for that mystery-colored smoke bomb to turn into a natural disaster.
At least for now, it’s time to put the smoke bombs back in their box, and instead stick to the classic cake-cutting reveal. In between gender reveal parties there’s plenty of time to read up on the devastation climate change causes and work to do your part so you don’t become the mom-to-be that starts a massive inferno.
