On the Ball: World Cup green-ness

Soccer's biggest to-do goes green.

Posted by Sarah K. Burkhalter at 4:34 PM on 06 Jun 2006

Read more about: sports

This article says that more than 30 billion people -- out of a world population of 6.6 billion -- are expected to tune into the upcoming ~~soccer~~ football World Cup. So that just goes to show you how popular ~~soccer~~ football is.

The event kicks off (ha!) on Friday in Germany and my fiancé would be happy to tell you when all the games are being played, which team is playing which, what their chances are of moving to the next round, what color each team wears, the name of every player on every team, and precisely how to work, eat, sleep, plan a wedding, and watch six hours of ~~soccer~~ football every day for over a month. Me -- all I've got is the green angle.

Says the World Cup environmentalness website:

Green Goal^TM gives environmental protection a project status for the FIFA World Cup for the first time in the history of football.

The tournament will be climate neutral and aim to meet environmental protection targets in the areas of abfall, verkehr, energie, and wasser. (Sprechen Sie Deutsch? I don't, I just read the URLs.)

One stadium is mounting solar panels on its roof; the arena in Munich is reducing electricity and heat consumption by about 20 percent. Another initiative aims to persuade half of the 3.2 million spectators to take public transit to the games (and they'd better, because obviously parking is gonna be a bitch).

I've got my money on the home team, which I like to call Deutschland. Anybody wanna make a friendly wager? (Pretty sure I'm not allowed to be taking money here on the old Gristmill, so we'll just bet a virtual high five.)

For story: On the Ball: World Cup green-ness
5 Comments | Post a Comment

Deutschland...

sadly, are going to be pretty hard to beat on their home turf (would that I knew more swear words in German!)

Not to make your dashing young Andrew too jealous, but I'm flying over to Germany on Saturday for nearly 3 weeks of glorious football. Clearly I'll be rooting for our US Men's National Team, but I'm also fond of Portugal and Croatia, and will be interested to see how the African nations do.

I'll keep my eyes out for interesting green-news whilst in Deutschland and will make a report when I get back.

That reminds me.. need to go to carbonfund.org and offset my flight!

auf wiedersehen,
Kaela

by kmp at 8:06 AM on 07 Jun 2006

More than 30 billion?

I suppose there are a goodly number of fans who are 1000% enthusiastic?

Gute Fahrt, Kaela. Portugal is a nice choice. I shall be formally cheering on Mexico. But of course whithersoever Javier Saviola goes, I helplessly follow, and I guess he will be with Argentina.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 11:44 AM on 07 Jun 2006

Schnell!

No hurry, I just love that word.

I believe the "30 billion" is a person-watch-per-game estimate.. at least that's my guess based upon this quote from the Chinese official:

"But based on my experience, the accumulated number of viewers for all 64 matches will definitely exceed 10 billion."

Anyway, I have a sneaky affection for Argentina myself, but I cannot reveal this in front of my Brit friends (long-standing rivalry) so I keep it to myself during games. Also, I genuinely like the Mexicans, but of course, as arch-rivals of the US, can only root for them against anyone but the US.

For green-related content: to off-set my air travel, as well as many planned train trips back & forth across Germany (not to mention the carbon produced by brewing all the beer I intend to consume), I visited American Forests and planted a bunch o' trees. Seems like they are involved in many worthy projects, and at a $1 a tree, the price can't be beat!

kaela

by kmp at 12:14 PM on 07 Jun 2006

garbage, traffic, energy and water:

Thats what Green Goal intends on targeting at the World Cup in terms of environmentalness. I certainly do hope they've got an extensive public transport schedule together and plenty of garbage bags for all that trash!

I will be rooting for my home country Holland. I've got a lot of faith in them, but it's kind of hard to show my pride when everyone else is rooting for Costa Rica, where, unfortunately, I'll be watching from. Nevertheless, it promises to be good times.

HUP HOLLAND!!!

Jax

by jackiemarks at 9:12 AM on 08 Jun 2006

!Viva Mexico!

And bravo Portugal too! Though Portugal definitely could stand improvement; only England so far had a more inglorious victory. At least the Portuguese and the Angolans were remarkably gracious to one another afterwards. (With microphones present.)

Jax, everybody in Costa Rica must be pretty gloomy. But really, they had so much riding against them. Horrible luck, drawing Deutschland in the very first game. At least they got two goals! That counts as a moral victory, I should think.

Little makes me happier than moral victories, actually. And so I wept tears of joy when Trinidad and Tobago were celebrating as though they had beat Brazil 5-0, for having kept Sweden to a scoreless tie.

And congratulations on Holland's chances. They are definitely going to go far. I really want to see them play and crush Germany at some point.

Thanks, Kaela, for the American Forests reference. I am still leary about how offsetting works, of course. Nevertheless, when we do our motortrip to New England later this summer, I shall be sure to return to American Forests.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 3:05 PM on 11 Jun 2006

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