From the National Football League planting thousands of trees to the first environmentally-friendly baseball field in America, many sports are going green. Several sports and star athletes are showing their green commitment in many ways.
Yao Ming, National Basketball Association player for the Houston Rockets, takes action by trying to get the Chinese people to stop eating shark fin soup. Fishermen hunt the shark, cut of its fin, and then throw it back into the water where it eventually dies. Now the sharks are becoming endangered. Yao Ming says “endangered species are our friends.”
Gymnast Li Ning, an Olympic gold medalist, and Liu Huan, a musician, signed a petition with Yao Ming to try to change the shark hunting laws.
This year, the National Football League went green by changing their recycling environmental program by adding green energy and tree planting. The NFL planted over two thousand trees in twelve different cities. Also, they now use a green energy source call TECO, a power from solar panels in Tampa Bay, Florida.
The Washington Nationals’ new baseball stadium is the first environmentally friendly baseball stadium in the United States. The green stadium was made just in time for the start of the 2008 season on March 30, 2008. It costs nearly $611 million to build, but officials say it will save money over time. The field has energy saving lights, water conserving plumbing, drought resistant plants, and a green roof over the concession area. These will all help save money and energy.
For the last Summer Olympics, the International Olympics Committee encouraged Beijing officials to consider the environmental in their planning. Solar power, wind power, and geothermal power help to heat and cool the Olympic stadiums. The Aquatics Center can recycle 100 tons of rain water and is like a greenhouse with 3,000 panels that help trap the sun’s heat and warmth. Millions of people took eco-friendly transportation sources to and from the events.
Fans attending the Winter X-games who were caught somehow helping the environment were given tokens that they could trade in for cool prizes at the THRASHed store. The store’s prizes were all environment-friendly.
Many sports, teams, organizations, and star athletes are going green, and if they continue, we could start turning global warming around.