Football FRIDAY!
Sports fans, it's FRIDAY. The Friday before a college football Saturday. Followed by an NFL Sunday. Is there anything better? Oh, and it's my favorite Saturday of the year, when my beloved Badgers take on the Nittany Lions. This fan is hoping for some pay back from last year's beat down in Happy Valley.
Face it, our society is sports CRAZED. Even at AccuWeather.com, we regularly provide a sports forecast. And it's not just here in America. Much of the rest of the globe is as soccer-mad as we are for the guys on the gridiron. Then there's THE global sporting event, the Olympics. Beijing is expecting 1.5 million visitors to the 2008 games. That's a lot of visitors doing a lot of traveling. This column, from the UK Guardian, asks whether the carbon emissions produced directly and indirectly as a result of sports are worth it. Now, I'm no fan of auto racing, and would gladly see it go the way of the dinosaur. But the millions of NASCAR fans in the country would probably pillory me for that opinion. It's a question worth asking though. Should we be fueling global warming (if it is indeed caused by greenhouse gases) for our entertainment?
Just food for thought on this Football Friday.
Comments (6)
This is quite possibly the stupidest question ever asked. Should we not grow cows because of the methane we produce? Should we not go Christmas shopping because of the greenhouse gases we produce in the process? Global Warming Global Schmwarming. It's all hype, and even the "experts" say it's pracically too late, and the trillions of dollars that we will spend "fixing" "it" will have a negligible effect. So, if it even exists, we really shouldn't care anyway.
Posted by Alex | November 5, 2006 2:20 AM
Have you heard of the 60 year cycle and the earth wobble?
Posted by Penny | November 5, 2006 3:49 PM
At one time I was an Environmental Studies major at UCSC and I asked myself this same question. If I return to school I plan to make it my senior thesis and this is my idea. I believe there needs to be some kind of pleasure per person vs environmental damage index. If you look at things this way, one or two people out in and SUV or a boat for instance is not so environmentally efficient, whereas a huge crowd deriving pleasure from a few drivers is not so bad. As we run closer and closer to the end of the worlds oil supply and global warming, ANY use of petrolium becomes huge. I also believe we are getting very close to that precipice, and should be looking at alternative energy type races. I also believe public transportation to all large events (concerts etc...) should be provided free, to encourage it's use.
Thanks -Ian
Posted by Ian Mitchell | November 6, 2006 10:17 AM
As per your comment to NASCAR and global warming-if you can get 200,000 people in the stands to watch 43 cars go around for hours at a time that they could be on the highway burning gas and MILLIONS of people watching it on television and NOT burning gas your comment doesn't hold much gas!
Posted by Arnold | November 6, 2006 6:27 PM
I agree with Laura. You can't tell me that all the different forms of motorsports aren't a massive misuse of energy! (monster truck shows?)
All the qualifying runs, shop work, and warm-ups are not seen by any spectators and cause even more pollution than the actual race. Get a life and do something else for fun besides viewing unmuffled engines burn a hole in our atmosphere!
Posted by Gary Smith | January 18, 2007 11:32 AM
We are told not limit how long we leave our cars idling, to car pool, all to our part to reduce greenhouse gas. Yet NASCAR is okay? We will never get rid of all forms of green house gas (i.e. cows) so we should be cutting back on the unnecessary forms of pollution - like NASCAR.
Posted by Joanne | February 2, 2007 11:50 PM