sports

Beijing, London, and more on the Super Bowl

Because it’s Friday, I’m going to get a little crazy and bring you the green sports news in reverse chronological order. Brace yourselves. London has released a sustainable development strategy for its 2012 Olympics hosting, and it’s being billed as the greenest games in modern times. “The prize for hosting the 2012 Games will be […]

Football’s biggest day will be carbon neutral

I don’t really like football, but I love the Super Bowl. Chips, dip, friends, commercials, man-hugging — it’s one of my favorite days of the year. And this year, it’ll be extra-super, as it’ll be carbon neutral. Thanks to the planting of hundreds of trees, the event might even be carbon negative, says the NFL’s […]

Cycling team is first carbon-neutral pro sports team in U.S.

Congratulations to the Kodak Gallery Pro Cycling Team presented by Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. for having a ridiculously corporatastic name becoming the first carbon-neutral U.S. professional sports team. The KGPCTpbSNBC will offset 100 percent of team-produced carbon emissions in 2007, including travel, support crew, and team members' home electricity use. Team marketing director Rob O'Dea has the sound bite:

This program allows our team to take a leadership position in raising the bar of personal responsibility, and in creating awareness of the new tools that exist for individuals and organizations to take tangible steps to improve the air we breathe. We're glad to have a chance to offset the pollution we create by supporting the development of clean, renewable wind power.

Thanks for that, Rob.

A guest blogger weighs in on the impact of sports balls

The following post is from guest sports blogger Scott James, founder of Fair Trade Sports.

Here's a quick primer on sports balls, the materials of which they are made, and their environmental impact.

Sports balls consist of three main components:

• the outer shell (synthetic leather -- about 30 percent of the total ball);
• the inner air bladder (rubber -- about 70 percent of the total ball); and
• the dyes (less than 1 percent of the total ball).

Chinese food quality a concern as 2008 Olympics approaches

In 2000, when Beijing made its bid for the 2008 Olympics, it promised to get all cleaned up if it could please, pretty please, be the host. Its wishes came true, but China's goal of throwing a green Olympics seems ever out of reach. To quote ourselves:

China has promised to throw a "green" Olympics in Beijing in 2008 -- but simple livability may be the megacity's bigger challenge. Beijing has 15.2 million inhabitants; if current trends hold, that number could grow to 21 million by 2020. Gridlock is endemic, as the number of cars more than doubled in the past six years. Already-bad air quality is deteriorating. The city's water supply is so overtaxed that some experts are calling for rationing. City officials are racing to replace thousands of old, stinky public toilets, while over a hundred construction projects related to the upcoming Olympics are hurtling forward. Critics blame decades of bad urban-planning policy for the city's problems. "In the past, we never thought of the capacity of resources," said Huang Yan, Beijing's deputy director of planning. "We only focused on development." She's introduced a master plan that includes the bold goal of rendering Beijing "a city suitable for living."

And I claimed there were no eco-friendly chaps in the English Premier League

I stand corrected. Back in the day I claimed that there were no eco-friendly chaps in the English Premier League. But lo and behold -- I bring you Calamity James.

James, a goalkeeper for Portsmouth, was born David, not Calamity, but seeing as Wikipedia lists him under the heading "Notable footballers prone to errors," it's a deserved nickname. Still, judging from a recent op-ed, at least his heart's in the right place.

James berates English football (yes, soccer, whatever) for its eco-slackerness:

Skiing, soccer, and motor racing, oh my!

Goodness. Sometimes this dashing (lovely?) sportswriter must resort to reeeally stretching to make a sports-environment connection; sometimes, the eco-athletics news springs up faster than you can, um, [insert your sports analogy of choice here].

Nike is recognized for sustainability, commutability

Swoosh, for those not hopelessly entrenched in American consumer culture, refers to Nike, and is not to be confused with the enviably-young-and-far-more-talented-than-I-will-ever-be Smoosh.

My point being:

Here comes the stretch …

It would be easier to write a sports column on an environmental blog if the athletic world was actually doing anything helpful to the earth. (I'm a busy girl with limited time for Google searching, people.) That being the case, some folks think we should rethink our way of sporting altogether. I say, when we've tackled the large-scale social and political adjustment that will allow us to effectively combat climate change, then we can move on to athletic-supporter adjustment. Hee hee hee.

So, right. Not much in the sporting world to write about today. So in the spirit of trying to make a connection where there isn't really one, here comes the stretch, and the pitch, from Tim Haab over at Environmental Economics.