Talk:Nebraska Cornhuskers football

Latest comment: 9 months ago by Viriditas in topic Re: Balloon release

Semi-protected edit request on 22 September 2022

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Mickey Joseph is know 0-1 Papa smitty (talk) 18:59, 22 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

  Not done: The page's protection level has changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. MadGuy7023 (talk) 13:32, 25 September 2022 (UTC)Reply
Ttt 2601:347:4200:3720:11A:9750:B6A2:B25B (talk) 20:16, 10 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Re: Balloon release

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I was surprised this was still going on. The scientific consensus is against balloon releases as they significantly harm the environment and wildlife. It is a violation of NPOV to not represent this discussion in the sources regarding their practices. It has been discussed extensively in the sources about this specific subject, particularly in 2021:

The damage to wildlife such as turtles, birds, and deer who mistake the balloons for food is why the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a statement urging people to stop releasing balloons and also why numerous states, cities, and even countries have passed laws to ban and enforce penalties for balloons releases including Connecticut, Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia,” Woerner said. According to ASUN, UNL is the only Big Ten school along with the only university in the country that still does mass balloon releases. “The harm caused to the environment by this tradition and the impacts it has on our reputation as a University cannot be ignored any longer,” Skylar Hanson, Senior Human Resource Management major at UNL said. “There is clearly a growing consensus among students that it is time for us to part with this particular tradition,” Ivan Molina, Junior Political Science major at UNL said.[1]

The idea that this has anything to do with a helium shortage is a violation of NPOV and only represents one aspect of the practice. A bizarre 2011 article by the Daily Nebraskan strangely denied that the practice was environmentally harmful and weirdly claimed that the EPA wasn't concerned. In reality, every relevant scientific body in the world has recommended against the practice. A 2012 study by Clemson students showed that the balloons had measurable impacts on the environment that were at odds with claims that they were safe, leading to them halting the practice in 2018.[2] Two petitions were filed against the University of Nebraska, one around the time of the Clemson study and another in 2014,[3] and in 2016, they were sued for continuing the balloon release.[4]. The idea that this tradition ended because of a helium shortage is 100% unsupported and appears to be a whitewashing of all of the major opposition to balloon releases by the university over the last decade. This needs to be fixed. Viriditas (talk) 17:41, 20 February 2024 (UTC)Reply