How on earth could these two things have anything to do with one another, you might ask? Well in my opinion, no matter what we do, it all has some effect on the environment. Both negative and positive depending on the situation.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had plenty of time to relax and of course watch some of my favorite sporting events. From the NFL to my favorite NCAA basketball team, I watched the war of will, honor, integrity, talent and skill fight on to the finish. And as I did, I began to think about the environment.
I thought about the environment because I saw all of those people watching the events. Thousands upon thousands of people sitting there watching. Stadiums big enough to consume acres of land that would probably be better used for natural habitats like parks. A sea of cars, trucks & vans sprawled across even more acreage to accommodate all of those people who drove to see the event. And let’s not forget the amount of energy used to cook all of those hot dogs and burgers or the power they must consume to light up a stadium.
So what would happen if no more sporting events occurred? What kind of environmental impact would that have around the world? What kind of economic impact would it have? How many attendants, cooks, maintenance people and yes, athletes would be out of a job if we canceled sports entirely?
No matter what we do, we have an impact. That’s my point of this entire article. What other non-obvious connections to the environment can you think of that make an impact?