green | rising

Sustainable Sports

August 10th, 2007 by Vihar Sheth | Posted in Sustainability, Vegetarianism

The sports industry, for all of its evolution over the years, still has a long way to go. Sports have been integrated for some time and Title IX has helped women gain access to legitimate athletic opportunities. But, homosexuality is still taboo though prevalant, and the use of recreational and performance-enhancing drugs is significant. Only tolerance and education, respectively, will help sports become more sustainable from the player’s perspective. What about from the outside in? An old article and a new article shed some light on aspects of sports, off the field.

First I’d like to bring your attention an article published on Sports Illustrated’s website called, “Going, Going Green“. The piece is from March 6, 2007 but will hold relevance for years to come.  

People mostly talk about the players and what affects them, but what impact does sports have on society at large? Tens of thousands of people drive from miles away to consume more calories then they could ever need in a stadium built from public money (usually) that’s used for a fraction of the year. Reeks of sustainability, no? Some stadiums, built away from urban density, don’t waste “livable” land but require extreme amounts of wasteful behavior to be reached. Others, built in the middle of a metropolitan city, waste prime real estate for most of their existence but allow for more environmentally friendly access. Woe is me!

The article discusses a plethora of ideas, from planting trees to offset the pollution created from big events like the Super Bowl, to designing self-sustaining, carbon neutral stadiums, similar to the one in the rendering, which is taken from the article. One of the more interesting points the article makes relates to the ability of the sporting industry to raise awareness in its fans. “By going green, motor sports could have the quickest impact on public awareness of the planet’s fate. The Formula One circuit has already discovered hybrids and biofuels, and Indy cars are mixing ethanol into their fuel. NASCAR is poised to phase out leaded gasoline, a neurotoxin. (The Clean Air Act of 1970 included an exemption for race cars even as the public was barred from buying cars that ran on leaded gas.) It’s only a short jump from a NASCAR driver with a raised consciousness to a NASCAR fan with the same.”

The second article is more a list than anything: it’s PETA’s 2007 Top 10 Vegetarian-Friendly Ballparks. In order, they are:

1. Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia Phillies)
2. AT&T Park (San Francisco Giants)
3. Safeco Field (Seattle Mariners)
4. PETCO Park (San Diego Padres)
5. Busch Stadium (St. Louis Cardinals)
6. Coors Field (Colorado Rockies)
7. Rogers Centre (Toronto Blue Jays)
8. Dolphin Stadium (Florida Marlins)
9. McAfee Coliseum (Oakland Athletics)
10. (tie) Minute Maid Park (Houston Astros)
11. (tie) Chase Field (Arizona Diamondbacks)

The reason I bring this list to attention is because of the inexplicable ignorance of the harm the meat industry causes to the environment. The sports industry, and the fans of its products, are the stereotypical meat-eating, gas-guzzling people who need to change the way they live their lives if society stands any chance of reversing climate change. The fact that these stadiums now offer vegetarian-friendly options is fabulous, and would have been a laughable idea not ten years ago. The broader issue here is that, as I discussed here, vegetarianism alone can help the environment in substantial ways.  I’m not so ignorant to think the world will stop eating meat tomorrow, but an increase in global vegetarianism would go a long way in increasing human compassion as well as reducing the human impact on our planet. For years the strongest argument against eating meat was an ethical one, and a lot of people just don’t give a damn. But now, undeniable (by the sane) scientific facts exist that show the extremely detrimental effect on the environment of raising and killing animals for food. We haven’t evolved enough to realize that simple, more impactful changes in lifestyle can be made overnight. Instead, we fund ridiculously wasteful ethanol technology while trying to squeeze five miles per gallon increases in fuel efficiency out of an ass-backwards government. The future is truly bright.