Play It Green

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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‘Veggie Love’: PETA’s Banned Super Bowl Ad

PETA has topped itself again, with an attempt to sex up vegetarian eating with an ad that depicts crawling lingerie-clad models licking pumpkins and fondling broccolli. They figured that was bound to catch the attention of some hot wings-devouring football fans during the hallowed event known as Superbowl Sunday, but, alas, NBC said the spot “depicts a level of sexuality exceeding our standards” and won’t let it run. In order for the network to reconsider the ad, write the PETA folks on their blog, they’d have to cut scenes including:

* rubbing pelvic region with pumpkin

* screwing herself with broccoli (fuzzy)

* licking eggplant

* rubbing asparagus on breast

Of course, PETA, master of controversy, must be salivating itself over the sure-fire publicity its ad is now generating online. Marketing: they’re doing it right.

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The NFL is gearing up for Superbowl madness by planting trees. On Dec. 11, volunteers and schoolkids in Tampa, Florida will plant more than one thousand trees to continue the league’s Super Bowl greening efforts, now in its fifth year. The U.S. Forest Service provided grants for the local trees, which include over 700 red mangrove trees to be planted along the Terra Ceia shoreline, to help protect the coastal land from erosion and to provide habitat and food sources for fish, shellfish, birds and wildlife. There are a dozen of these tree-plantings happening prior to Super Bowl XLIII set for the Raymond James Stadium on February 1. What’s cool about this year’s event is a new twist in the operations–long-term monitoring of the tree plantings so the NFL can begin to actually track the environmental impact.  Other facets of the NFL Environmental Program include food recovery at the stadium, donating decorations and building materials to local nonprofits, using renewable energy on game day, collecting books and sports equipment for local kids and buying carbon offsets for players and officials travelling to the game. And you thought it was all about the commercials…

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It’s a shame that given the number of people glued to their sets during this year’s Superbowl (97.5 million viewers, second only to the number of people who watched the M-A-S-H finale in 1983) that the National Football League didn’t do anything to let viewers know that it had made major environmental commitments. Good for them, that they offset emissions and planted trees, but how many sports fans watching even know what offsetting emissions means? According to www.environmentalleader.com, the Fox sports crew was even driving hybrids at the event. Surely there was an opportunity in there for a little green shout-out, a prerecorded message or a shameless plug. The one place where an environmental message was seen was in one of the night’s worst commercials—a sober plea for GM’s GMC Yukon, a gargantuan hybrid SUV that combines gas and electricity and gets 20 mpg.

The cost is over $50,000, putting the vehicle over most families’ spending abilities, but the ad stood out for another reason. Once again, people are being told that going green means giving up nothing—that they simply need to spend more, consume more. Fortunately, the yawn-inducing commercial most likely provided a perfect moment to grab a fresh beer or hit the toilet.

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There could hardly be a better state to host a “green” Superbowl than Arizona, which needs to call attention to the very immediate realities of pollution and resource depletion and the importance of fast environmental action.

People are moving to the hot, dry state in droves—population there increased by over 800,000 people between 2000 and 2005 according to U.S. Census figures, more than the number of people that live in South Dakota or Vermont or Wyoming. By 2030, Arizona’s population is expected to double to close to 11 million people, the same time that water supplies will likely fail to meet demand. Not surprisingly, the state’s greenhouse gas emissions have risen at an alarming rate, putting the state among the top 10 for carbon dioxide emissions. In Arizona’s case, cars and coal-fired power plants are to blame. As those emissions send temperatures rising in summer months, the state faces increased droughts and water shortages.