Play It Green

Nowhere are mascots more convoluted and complicated than the Olympics. And nowhere more environmentally appropriate. Unlike other sports franchises more concerned with mass appeal, the Olympic mascots offer a chance for host countries to flaunt their favorite fauna. In 1984, the United States bored the world with its hit-you-over-the-head-obvious Sam the (bald) Eagle mascot. Designed, of course, by the Walt Disney Company. The 1988 Calgary winter Olympics offered Hidy and Howdy, two polar bears. Amazingly, those names were selected from more than 7,000. While the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney offered a spectrum of Aussie natives including a kookaburra, a platypus and an echidna, it was the unofficial mascot, Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat that gained true cult status and the only mascot adorning the country’s official Olympic park. So what’s China unleashed on the world in preparation for this summer’s Beijing Olympics?

A collection called Fuwa that is equal parts complicated, environmental and brilliant: Beibei, the fish; Jingjing, the giant panda; Huanhuan, the Olympic flame; Yingying, the Tibetan antelope and Nini, the swallow. Together, the names form the Chinese phrase “Beijing huan ying ni” or “Beijing welcomes you.” But wait! There’s more! These characters not only represent China’s most popular animals, but also the five elements of nature: the sea, forest, fire, earth and sky. Your move, Russia.

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If the batmobile were a speedboat, it would be Earthrace. The 100 percent biodiesel, $2.5 million boat is a futuristic vision that yesterday launched from the Vulkan Shipyard in Sagunto, Spain to set a new world record for circumnavigating the globe (the current record is 74 days). The boat is designed to win, with extremely narrow hulls to plow through rough ocean conditions at top speed. And Earthrace is a traveling environmental lesson, with parts made from hemp composite, vegetable oil lubricants and bilge water pumped through special filters. They’re purchasing carbon credits to offset whatever emissions they do produce, so they can stamp the whole effort “carbon neutral.”

Captain Pete Bethune (a New Zealand native and former oil industry engineer) is keeping track of all the race highs and lows in a blog, the first post of which ends with some inspiring words: “Everyone should experience this once in their life I say to myself, as I push the throttles fully forward, and 1080 horsepower of Cummins Mercruiser grunt roars into roar into life. Earthrace lurches forward and roars past the start line.”

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Let’s give thanks that golfers (or at least golf magazines) are aware that they have an environmental impact. The Golf & the Environment Initiative has been working out the sticky issues since 1995 according to an extensive piece in Golf Digest. But they’ve barely scratched the surface. In what the magazine is calling it’s most important article ever, the downloadable 27-page How Green is Golf? takes the industry to task by merely pointing out the obvious.

Water is scarce and getting scarcer. U.S. courses use some 300,000 gallons of water per day, even as population growth and global warming are leading to a worldwide water scarcity that is likely to be frightening in scope (try 1.8 billion without enough to drink by 2025). There are pesticides, a constant issue in golf where perfect green courses are the norm. Author John Barton says matter-of-factly that those pesky environmentalists aren’t going away and the “freakishly green wall-to-wall grass on a life support system of too much water and toxic chemicals” is likely to get stigmatized, by and by.

Golf resorts styled after Augusta’s exclusive rich-guy’s-only model may become the very symbol of resource-depleting, self-serving excess (a.k.a., the new Hummer). Speaking to a golf course architect (Mike Hurdzan) and an eco-activist (Jay Feldman of Beyond Pesticides) and other leaders as well as conducting their own surveys of golfers versus non-golfers, the article is perhaps the first honest look at the sport’s impact.

As could be expected, those sounding off on the forum are less than pleased with the Digest’s sudden left-turn. “Please leave Al Gore’s money making, socialist scam out of golf,” writes one. “Obviously the editors of Golf Digest have bought into this hoax of global warming, or if you prefer we can call it climate change so there is no chance of being proven a complete fool so long as the weather changes daily,” writes another.

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President Bush may have thrown the first pitch at the opening Nationals game, but National Resources Defense Council Founder John Adams was the pitcher-of-honor at Fenway Park last night. The pitch was followed by a broadcast PSA from NRDC board member Robert Redford (such the smooth ballplayer/ladykiller in “The Natural”) talking about how Major League Baseball is going green. And to mark the occasion, players even wore a special green logo on their left sleeves showing the Sox symbol surrounded by those reduce-reuse-recycle arrows. Of all the Earth Day coverage saturating the airwaves, this falls into the most fun variety.

 The Sox, apparently, have taken their “Greening Fenway” seriously enough to win an Environmental Merit Award. As detailed on the NRDC blog, the initiatives include:
• Installation of solar panels on the roof along the first base line.
• Installation of solar powered trash compactors around Fenway Park.
• Reduced use of water and fertilizer on the playing field, and electric carts for the grounds crew.
• Use by concessionaire ARAMARK of recycled paper for food service materials, as much locally grown produce as possible, and compostable trash bags.
• Use of recycled paper for media guides, schedules and yearbooks.
• Mobilization of the Poland Spring Green Team, a corps of 30-50 mostly student volunteers who will gather plastic bottles and distribute recycling information to fans.

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It’s great that those artificial turf fields require so little precious resources to maintain. As long as they’re not emitting lead, that is. Last week, state investigators found that the levels of lead in the College of New Jersey’s football field and two others had lead levels eight to 10 times higher than the state’s residential soil standard for cleanup of contaminated properties. Then the Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) bought samples of residential turf online and found similar high lead levels. Of course, they don’t reveal the names of those companies because that would be providing too much information to the public. Now, says the Washington Post, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is beginning to investigate whether synthetic sports fields are dangerous. A commission spokesperson said there’s no reason parents should panic. Yet.

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What has a clever name, contains recycled rubber and is not a sneaker? The Wilson Rebound green basketball, launched just in time for Earth Day. Although it’s not green, it’s black with green lettering and made from 40 percent recycled rubber. The company says that every 70 balls add up to one tire that’s not being tossed into a landfill. While that seems like a high tire-to-ball-ratio, the company gets points for its slogan: “Think Globally, Hoop Locally,” and for packaging the whole thing in an 80 percent pre- or post-consumer recycled box. Although some might wonder why a basketball needs a box at all…

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Surfers seem to bear the weight of environmental destruction more than most athletes. What with the receding sand, the trash-strewn beaches and the postings warning of polluted water, they’ve got environmental fallout in their faces. But are they really contributing significantly to global warming by “driving up and down the coast looking for surf”? It’s a stretch, but don’t tell that to surfers Dr. Scott Paynton (a professor at Humboldt State University) and Mike Conway (a student there) who are taking two weeks in May to bike 500 miles and surf down the coast of California. Either way, Bike and Surf California offers good publicity (and surfing) for the friends, who are carrying all their gear and boards by bike, all of which is sustainable, and much of which is donated by companies like Teva, Simple Shoes, Home Blown bio-foam surfboards, Camelbak and others. In July, they’re participating in the Relay for Life event and any money raised on either journey will go to the American Cancer Society.

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Some baseball franchises get it: a new stadium means a new shot at going sustainable. None has risen to the occasion more than the Washington Nationals, though fans loudly booing President Bush on opening day (March 30) drew more media attention than the Nationals Park impressive aim to become the first LEED-certified ballpark. According to the Nationals site, they’re paying particular attention to issues affecting the health of the Acacostia River, an abused 8-mile urban waterway that’s too toxic for swimming or fishing and has been dubbed the “Forgotten River.” This means an involved recycling system to conserve water used for maintaining the field and minimizing water pollution. Other green moves at the park include a vegetation-covered roof over one concession area, efficient lighting and, most importantly, a minimum of parking spaces. Instead, the park’s sited on an urban infill plot a block from a subway stop, pushing fans to take public transportation and leave their gas guzzlers at home.

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 Baseball fans on Fanhouse may deride it as more Al Gore fear-mongering, but baseball is stepping up its game in a big way when it comes to environmental initiatives. A lot of talk is focusing on the Red Sox, who partnered with the National Resources Defense Council last year on revamping the park by 2012 (when Fenway will turn 100). “We are the oldest continuously operated sports facility in America,” Katie Kirschner, senior manager of business operations for the Red Sox told NRDC’s On Earth Magazine. “We thought, wouldn’t it be great if we led the charge by becoming the most sustainable ballpark in the country too?” The nonprofit is helping the Sox reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent and recover 50 percent of its recyclable drink containers. The team will buy an increasing percentage of its electricity from renewable sources, use paper with at least 30 percent post-consumer content, and keep at least 40 percent of stadium waste from entering landfills through recycling, reusing, and composting programs. And solar panels may very well power the stadium’s lighting, giving the home of the “Green Monster” new meaning.

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