Play It Green

Racecar driver and environmental advocate Leilani Munter delivers a first-hand report from the front lines of the Gulf spill–interviewing shell-shocked fishermen who talk about having to find other careers now, discussing how oil execs shortchanged those who lost their livelihood and talking up the importance of moving to renewable energy. Despite her own fossil fuel-driven livelihood and all.

Why did this happen?

Oil companies: $150 million a year for 750 full-time lobbyists.

Gulf Coast residents: zip.

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We all have those moments when we wish life came with an escape hatch…when we could ditch it all, head out on the road and never look back. Some, with little in the way of personal ties, manage to fit adventure and spontaneity into their lives, but most of us give up such dreams once a mortgage, child and more “practical concerns” come along.

So it is with some amazement, and a touch of envy, that I learned about the Pedouins–a family of 5 who are pedaling 7,000 miles from Kentucky to Alaska on a five-person, or quint, bicycle. The parents, Bill and Amarins, with their 3 daughters, Cheyenne (6), Jasmine (4) and Robin (3) left on Aug. 1 of last year and made it to California by way of Mexico this past February–they expect to reach Fairbanks, Alaska this summer.  Along the way, they are immersing themselves in the country’s natural wonders, finding new friends who lend them places to stay and spending more quality out-in-nature time together than most families can ever hope for. Follow their journey online, and allow yourself to be inspired.

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Sometimes, it’s the little things. Like the fact that Earth Day (April 22) is in the same month as major league baseball’s opening day–just a couple weeks apart! (MLB opening day is April 4). Lots of clubs are touting their greenness now, some (much) more impressively than others. Let’s examine some of the contenders.

• The Cleveland Indians are giving away recycled hats at their April 17 game against the White Sox. Made from plastic bottles. This operates via reverse green psychology. A hat still qualifies as stuff that involves manufacture, packaging and delivery. But they do help to keep that super-charged sun off your face, so points there.

• On Earth Day, the Cincinnati Reds will offset their carbon emissions. And the event staff will “wear uniforms from fiber culled from recycled drink bottles.” That’s probably not as uncomfortable as it sounds. But is that seriously supposed to make an impact? A: Are these new, one-time use uniforms? Because that’s just a silly waste. B: Do baseball fans really care about the fiber in the staff uniforms?

• Target Field, new home to the Minnesota Twins, is heading for LEED certification. In part thanks to a rainwater recycling system that will reduce the need for municipal water by over 50% saving more than 2 million gallons of water annually. Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

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Like many people, I’ve been tuning in to coverage of the Olympic Games—from luge, to moguls, to figure skating—captivated by what feats of strength and grace the human body is capable of. With such worldwide attention and grand-scale showmanship, it seems almost inappropriate to calculate the emissions and “sustainability” of the Vancouver Olympics. Each Olympics aims to be the greenest, and Vancouver is no different. As E wrote in a recent feature “Are the Games Really Green?” there‘s a certain amount of greenhouse gas emissions—specifically 330,000 tons along with ecosystem and habitat damage—associated with creating and hosting the Games that’s just inevitable.

When organizers do build arenas, tracks and buildings, they aim to set a green example. That includes the highly efficient Olympic Village in Vancouver, the temporary home for more than 2,000 skiers, snowboarders, figure skaters, curlers and other competitors, that has been called one of the “greenest neighborhoods in north America” by organizers and the National Resources Defense Council. When the Games have ended, the mini-city’s buildings will be turned into mixed-income housing, and aim for Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. A 64-unit building called Southeast False Creek that will later become senior housing is actually net zero—meaning it produces as much energy as it consumes.

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Here’s something to cheer about on Superbowl Sunday, other than the touching ascendancy of the New Orleans’ Saints. That is, if you can keep these facts straight. Here goes. NFL Films Studio, which produces a lot of football content and programming in lovely Mount Laurel, NJ, including superbowl content, will now be operating with a lot less carbon emissions. That’s thanks to Veolia Energy North America, which is taking over the “central facility” of the three-story, 200,000-square-foot studio complex, and providing its heating and cooling needs via energy-efficient chillers, a cooling tower and conventional boilers.

Also, off-green-topic, from a related press release… Did you know that NFL Films programming is aired in more than 200 countries? Who knew American football had that level of worldwide popularity and reach? But with compelling copy like this, how could it not? From the NFL Films website: “A super slow-motion sequence of a quarterback launching a spiral through a gray November sky. A receiver in full stride leaps to make a mid-air catch. A defender pulls him to the ground and brings the scene to an abrupt end. The plays happen instantly. The moments last a lifetime.” Pure poetry.

Also, fun facts! Games filmed 1965 season: 102. Games filmed 2005 season: 267.

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He’s got a heart of green. Atlanta Falcons fullback Ovie Mughelli has a foundation with the  motto “Our future is green.” Despite pictures of the larger-than-life NFLer on his (frankly, very well-executed) site clubbing with tight-dressed ladies and holding some sort of liquor named “bling,” the guy manages to come across as a down-to-earth do-gooder. He has a football camp in his home state of South Carolina where he’s big on promoting self-esteem and environmental awareness; said camp is being “greened” via recycling bins and reusable totes (it’s a start!) and he buys 40 seats per game to award to worthy kids. Also, he posed with Captain Planet (having received the “Superhero for the Earth” award). And that’s nothing if not ballsy. Also, read his blog, despite the fact that he hasn’t updated it in a year. Choice quote: “I was kinda upset because it didn’t stop raining all night, and I didn’t bring an umbrella.”

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Amid the clamor of health care debating and balloon boy (remember him?) speculating and Yankees-beating that’s been going on, there hasn’t been much room for talk of climate change legislation. To really make an impact, such legislation–be it cap-and-trade, in which companies buy and sell credits based on their polluting or the even better carbon tax in which companies (importing companies included!) pay a one-size-fits-all price for polluting–would have to be passed by December. It would need to predate the U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen happening that month (known as COP15), but that’s really, really unlikely. Besides being distracted and all, Congress doesn’t like to feel rushed (except when it comes to bailing out Wall Street, in which case, rush away!) And neither, for that matter, do world nations. Since the U.S. is not going to step up, the COP15 nations are likely to do little more than lay the groundwork for a future global climate agreement. Because it’s not like time is running out or anything.

And Nike–a member of the Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy–has  had enough of all the waffling. It, along with a bunch of other high profile companies like PG&E, Johnson&Johnson and Apple, resigned from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors in late September after the Chamber decided that any global warming legislation would have to apply globally to all major emitters–an extension of Congressional power that would require changing the U.S. Constitution. And the Chamber has resisted any legislation that would bring additional costs to businesses. In its statement, Nike said: “We believe that on the issue of climate change the Chamber has not represented the diversity of perspective held by the board of directors.”

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Even when I was in high school, I didn’t invest much time or effort into the high school football games. And that includes one sad season of cheering at said games (I was the unsmiling cheerleader, which was not all that rebellious in hindsight). It didn’t help that I attended a Catholic school, whose team got their butts kicked by opposing public school teams. And then, in the past couple years, I discovered Friday Night Lights (I’ve read the book, and seen the movie, but I’m talking about the TV series). Suddenly the idea of a town so invested in this weekly football contest seemed almost enviable (what a simple thing to care about after all). It was all so unifying and important, and the people involved were not nearly as dumbed-down as I would have expected high school football fanatics to be.  I realize it’s written by scriptwriters and played by (optimistically attractive) actors, but it captures something true nonetheless. There’s something pure about high school football. It’s easy to care about, even if you don’t.

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Do you know what you’re wiping your butt with when you use the bathroom at Lincoln Financial Field–home of the Philadelphia Eagles? I do. It’s SCA Tissue! Last May, 3 former Eagles even helped the tissue company plant 15 trees—linebacker Gary Cobb, wide receiver Fred Barnett and wide receiver Mike Quick—in their 6.5-acre Eagles Forest in Neshaminy State Park in Pennsylvania. The football team’s forest was just established last year, all part of its larger Go Green initiative. Last year, they offset all their emissions by purchasing wind power. Anyway, SCA is into forest management, plants 3 trees for every one used in Europe and sells 100% recycled paper products. Now the Eagles’ stadium carries nothing but SCA’s Tork brand, meaning its more than 1 million visitors wipe their butts and mouths with tree-happy recycled content. Since 2004, the team has reduced its energy consumption by 30%, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal.

On a side note, “the Nest” would be a much cooler and greener name for the Eagles’ stadium in an alternate universe where corporate sponsorship was not necessary. Even cooler if it actually looked like the Bird’s Nest from the Beijing Olympics (which Citi Group is now converting to an entertainment and shopping center).

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Race cars push technology forward across the industry–and they are the cars people want to drive–so it makes sense that the race for greener cars should get tested on the racetrack. Green racing measures not only speed but energy use, emissions and use of alternative fuels—it’s a complex, 30-plus part scoring system designed by researchers at the Argonne National Laboratory so that racers don’t just drive slowly around the track to secure a win, defeating the entire purpose of auto racing. “These are still 200-mph cars. We clearly did not want to change racing. We didn’t want to make it boring and slow,” says John Glenn of the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA and Department of Energy first promoted the idea of green racing.

This is the second year of the Michelin® GreenX® Challenge at the American Le Mans Series, the only race series in the world where all cars are allowed to race powered by alternative fuels like cellulosic E85, E10, clean sulfur-free diesel and gas-electric hybrids. Racers compete in four classifications including GT, which are modified street cars.

In this year’s race—Aug. 15-16—overall race winners Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud drove the de Ferran Motorsports Acura to lead an Acura sweep of the top three positions in both the race and in the Prototype category. “Hats off to Acura for not only creating a fantastic sports car but a car that can both win races and the Michelin GreenX Challenge,” said de Ferran. “This win at Mid-Ohio is like a home race for us. There are four Honda plants within a 50-mile radius of the track…”
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