Play It Green

Global Warming Godfather James Hansen keeps all the information on climate change you can stomach on his site. One of his posts makes an apt comparison between Yankee ticket prices and rising oil costs. Yankee Stadium used to have 70,000 seats, he writes, and “any kid could afford the cheap seats.” When they remodeled in the 1970s, they reduced seating to 57,000. The new stadium will have even less—51,800. Why? Hansen writes, “This intentional contraction is aimed at guaranteeing sellouts, increasing demand, allowing the owners, in pretty short order, to hike prices to double, triple, and more. The owners know that scarcity will fatten their wallets, even though it reduces the number of sales.” While this practice, sadly, discriminates against us folks of lesser means, at least, Hansen writes, the public’s not footing the bill.

The same can’t be said for the oil companies. “Fossil fuel moguls are intent on hoodwinking the entire planet with an analogous scheme,” he writes, and public tax dollars are subsidizing them. He writes that limited supply will keep prices high, and when those supplies run low, companies will continue to claim that there’s more oil and coal to be had in them there hills. “The presumed ‘200 year’ supply of coal in the United States is a myth,” Hansen writes, “but it serves industry moguls well.” The truth, Hansen writes, is that we’d have to start going after unconventional fossil fuels if we continue on this path, tar shale and tar sands, which would mean further catastrophic disaster for the planet.

“That choice cannot be left to the discretion of industry moguls,” Hansen writes. “The planet does not belong to them.” Nor does baseball, to the Yankees, though sometimes they forget that.

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Since Tiger Woods is such a media darling, golf is getting more attention than it has in years. As much respect as Woods deserves (and he gets a lot, thanks to his dominance, his charm and his drastic difference from those older white fellows on the course), it’s hard to characterize golf as anything but an environmental nightmare. Recycle the water, cut down on pesticides—it’s still a grotesque waste of land and resources, creating an idyllic, but entirely unnatural environment for just a handful of khaki-wearing members to enjoy.

But without chucking the sport altogether, researchers are looking at ways to make golf environmentally responsible. And those at the University of Massachusetts Amherst may have hit on a good first solution—plants that act as “living filters” at the edge of golf courses. While these plants won’t change the amount of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides applied on the courses to keep them so perfectly green, they will help prevent those residual chemicals from ending up in the soil and groundwater. According to the press release, 5 to 10 percent of the total pesticides applied are lost in runoff. And, says Guy Lanza, a professor of environmental science, “Once in the water, these chemicals affect the health of a wide variety of aquatic organisms, everything from bacteria and algae to fish and frogs. They may also pose a health risk to humans, but this is less certain.” Thanks to their large root systems, plants like blue flag and gamagrass could reduce pesticides by up to 94 percent—and they look real pretty, too.

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This is the sentence Christopher Shaw wants readers to take away from his tear-down of the Olympics: “The Olympic Games at the local level are all about real estate” (emphasis his). The Canadian professor and activist behind the No Games 2010 Coalition is particularly concerned about Vancouver’s successful bid for the 2010 Olympics in his book Five Ring Circus: Myths and Realities of the Olympic Games (New Society Publishers, $19.95), but the corporate corruption and ecological destruction inherent in the games is pervasive in every host city, he writes. While he blasts the slick marketing inherent in “selling” a city on the Olympics by the part of a big developer (Bid Corp, in Vancouver’s case), Shaw goes too far by blasting the athletes, too. “The athlete stories [leading up to the games] had a universal slickness,” he writes. He also compares Olympic fervor, on the part of both athletes and audiences, to the brainwashing of Nazi Germany and the rigid uniformity of Communist China. This is the writing of a man made bitter by his struggle against a perceived corporate enemy.

As an environmental argument, however, the book makes a convincing case. Continue Reading »

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Bill “Spaceman” Lee, the dedicated environmental spokesperson and counterculture hero of baseball will be the starting pitcher for the Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks on June 21. It’s the midnight sun game, and Lee will be reprising the role he played in 1967—the one he lost against the defending (and now extinct) Japanese National Champion Kumagai-Gumi Baseball Club. Lee continues to be an outspoken defender of organic farming, among other issues of environmental importance.

Last year, he was quoted in the Nashua Telegraph as saying, “Steroids? I see that our cows in Vermont are being injected with too much BST . . . There are more drugs in our food supply than there are in Barry Bonds. A red herring. It’s wagging the dog, because we don’t want to address that the drug companies control our thing.”

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Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said it best when he wrote about baseball’s new green mission. He compared the current greening efforts across major league parks to baseball’s former role in promoting civil rights when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Baseball, as he sees it, has a mission larger than making money and headlines. As he writes for the National Resources Defense Council’s Greening Advisor:

“Baseball is in a unique position to exert positive influence in the area of environmental stewardship…What we do at the Major League level can set a standard for the Minor Leagues, Amateur Baseball and youth and recreational baseball around the world. Sound environmental practices make business sense, help clubs be good citizens and protect our natural resources for future generations of fans.”

Even more eloquent are the words from former Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti (and former Yale President and Renaissance scholar and diehard Red Sox fan) who Selig cites. Giamatti wrote in his timeless 1991 book, Take Time for Paradise: Americans and Their Games:

“If we have known freedom, then we love it; it we love freedom, then we fear, at some level (individually or collectively) its loss. And then we cherish sport. As our forbears did, we remind ourselves through sport of what, here on earth, is our noblest hope. Through sport, we create our daily portion of freedom.”

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It’s a bad-ass new world out there for sports fans, who appreciate a nasty brawl as much an impressive play. Witness the rising popularity of mixed martial arts, which offers all the blood, bruises and head-bashing lacking in a typical WWE matchup. Also known as ultimate fighting, it makes boxing look civilized and wrestling look silly and it’s the sport to watch for young guys and girls reared on ultra-violent video games and movies.

A perfect audience, really, to hit with a little environmental knowledge, since they’re the ones who might have a some power to enact changes down the road (assuming they remain safely on the sidelines, as MMA has a way of altering consciousness). The sport came from a Brazilian fighting syle known as vale tudo (Portuguese for “anything goes”), so rainforest awareness is an apt place to start. The MMA World League has Jungle Fight, held in Brazil each year (early April this year), which aims to spread information about the Amazon rainforest. They’ve also got a global warming page on their site with pictures and info that look to be lifted straight from a science textbook. It’s a start.

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Just because the Yankees have shown no interest in making their new stadium a model of sustainability, doesn’t mean green efforts are a lost cause for New York baseball. The Mets have worked closely with the Environmental Protection Agency on the plans for their $800 million new Citi Field, set to open in Queens in 2009. The builders—Queens Ballpark Company, LLC—will use 2 million pounds of recycled coal combustion products instead of new cement, which is equivalent to taking 1,000 cars off the road for 2 months. About 95 percent of the 12,500 tons of steel going into the stadium will be recycled, they are considering a green roof and porous pavement will control storm water runoff. Says Mayor Michael Bloomberg: “It probably would have been easier to build a new ballpark without incorporating ‘green’ technology, but the Mets understand that their responsibility to New Yorkers doesn’t end with the third out in the bottom of the ninth.” Now it only remains to be seen whose T-shirt gets ”composted” in the recycled cement.

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If you want a company to change, you have to hold them responsible. Thankfully, the information age has brought with it a lot of watchdogs, particularly when it comes to environmental performance. It’s forced companies to be more transparent in their methods, but it’s also changed the business model. Companies now want that transparency—touting their reduced carbon footprints and post-consumer-recycled packaging is good for business. And it’s made it harder for those jumping on the green bandwagon to fool consumers.

What’s all this have to do with sports? Nike recently topped the list of companies on the ClimateCounts scorecard, a nonprofit collaboration between consumers and companies launched last year by organic yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm, Inc. The more committed a company was to reducing their carbon footprint and educating consumers, the higher their score on a scale of 0-100. Nike earned 82 points, for decreasing its carbon footprint by 80 percent. Not only will the ratings inspire low-scoring companies to get active, but the nonprofit has made the information easy for consumers to use: with a downloadable pocket version of the scorecard for in-the-moment shopping decisions.

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So someone came up with a list of “8 mascots that need to die” on armchairgm, and it not only contains potential environmental mascot du jour, the Stanford Tree, but another unofficial college mascot (for Dartmouth College), Keggy the Keg, who has an unexpected green leaning, as one commenter writes.

“Kegs are banned at Dartmouth unless you register them way in advance. It’s a huge pain, it sucks for the environment (we drink a LOT of cans and none of the frats try very hard to recycle) and most importantly, it’s an infringement on our freedom of beverage container choice for no apparent reason.”

So, there you have it. Keggy, is in fact, the eco-hero among mascots. Provided students use refillable cups.

Also, it’s a bit out-dated, but Keggy’s blog is amusing nonetheless.

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I’m sure this is completely sacreligious to the Bud-swilling sausage-and-peppers types, but, suck it up. In keeping with their out-of-control ticket prices, now rivalling Broadway plays and Sting concerts, stadiums are offering more refined eating (and drinking) options. In some cases, they’re giving the regional cuisine favorites a veggie twist, reports MSN.com. PETA has named the Philadelphia Phillies’ Citizens Bank Park the “most vegetarian-friendly ballpark in the country” thanks to items like two vegetarian cheesesteaks from Rick’s Steaks and vegan hot dogs (which must taste better than usual vegan hotdogs, by virtue of their coming from a ballpark), veggie burgers and a vegetarian chicken cheese steak (is this another way to say grilled cheese?). And Coors Field, home to the Colorado Rockies, has veggie wraps and garden burgers and, most awesome, an onsite brewery for the creamy and delicious Blue Moon Brewing Company. In fact, PETA has a top ten list of ballparks with meatless cuisine.

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