Athletes Going Green

Hello Readers,

Being that this is a sports blog and I am a huge Arizona Diamondbacks fan, I want to congratulate the Dbacks for sweeping the "Lovable Losers" the Chicago Cubs and being one more step closer to the World Series!

I was researching to see if I could find more information about sports teams going green and I stumbled upon a cool website called Grist. On this web site it has "green lists" and some of the list topics are "Green Actors," "Green Cities," and "Green Sports Starts."

The lists of green sports starts was interesting to read and I wanted to outline some of what the stars are doing. The first star that they listed is Yao Ming. Yao is a basketball player that plays for the Houston Rockets and according to the Grist article Yao has, "spoken out against hunting of sharks for their fins, a delicacy in his native China," and Yao has also done public announcements for WildAid. You can click on this link to check out the Yao Ming video.

Another team on the list was the Philadelphia Eagles and how they have helped plant trees in Philadelphia. I was curious so I checked out their web site and on the Eagles web site they actually have a link called "Go Green." I was surprised to see this because I have checked other sports organizations web sites and the Eagles are one of the only ones to have a link on their web page. The Eagles are really doing some nice things in the community. One thing that is really cool about the Eagles Go Green page is that they have a "Green Energy Calculator" and according to the web site fans have saved $73,674.90 a year and saved 666,320 lbs. of CO2 per year. I highly recommend that you check this page out because their is so much that the Eagles are doing in the community to help make people and fans more environmentally friendly. You can access the Eagles Go Green web site here.

There was a link on the Eagles Go Green web site and I wanted to share it with you. This article was by the Associated Press and published in April 22, 2007. Some of the major points were that the Eagles are considered one of the most environmentally friendly sports organizations and the San Francisco Giants baseball team has installed solar panels. This article is a great read if you are a sports fan and it makes you realize that their are influential people that are trying to make a difference. I really suggest you read the article. It is called, "Concerned about the Earth, Pro Teams Move to Frontier of Change."

I wanted to point out a few other sports stars that were on the "Green Sports Stars" list. Kelly Slater is a pro surfer and eight time champion but he is also interested in saving the coral reefs worldwide. He has established the Kelly Slater Invitational competition which raises funds and awareness for Reef Check. According to this web site, Reef Check is a organization geared towards saving the reefs worldwide.

There are also four sporting events that the lists said were going green. They were the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the World Cup, and the Indy Racing League. If you want to see what they are doing then click here. Also check out some of the comments. There is some good information that the readers pointed out.