Green Sports

Sports Illustrated declares Global Warming is here**. 

Global warming is not coming; it is here. Greenhouse gases -- most notably carbon dioxide produced by burning coal, oil and gas -- are trapping solar heat that once escaped from the Earth's atmosphere. As temperatures around the globe increase, oceans are warming, fields are drying up, snow is melting, more rain is falling, and sea levels are rising.

All of which is changing the way we play and the sports we watch. Evidence is everywhere of a future hurtling toward us faster than scientists forecasted even a few years ago. Searing heat is turning that rite of passage of Texas high school football, the August two-a-day, into a one-at-night, while at the game's highest level the Miami Dolphins, once famous for sweating players into shape, have thrown in the soggy towel and built a climate-controlled practice bubble. Even the baseball bat as we know it is in peril, and final scores and outcomes of plays may be altered too.

I especially like this:

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.

I'm a NASCAR fan (trust me, you don't get an appreciation for it until you go to a race).  But phasing out leaded gas is setting an example?  Didn;t the rest of us have to do that in the 1970's?  What's next, they'll jump head first into the 20th century and install mufflers to reduce noise?

**John, environmental and sports economics combined.  Your dreams have come true.