Bulls to "Go Green" for first-ever NBA Green Week

[dougthonus]

How much energy and waste did we create to make a big deal about 25 or so guys wearing organic cotton warm ups? How much does an organic cotton warm up really even help the environment vs a conventional one?

I would guess the environmental impact in organizing this event vastly outweighed any benefit that comes with it, much like the majority of these types of things.

Environmental groups should be pushing to burn waste for fuel in addition to recycling IMO. Given that burning the waste for fuel would reduce fossil fuel usage and clean up all the landfills, and if we started committing to it, the costs and cleanliness of it would likely improve substantially over the next 20 years.

However, we don't make commitments to things that would actually give us long term sustainability for our planet.

 

[??? ??????]

Re:Bulls to

dougthonus wrote:

How much energy and waste did we create to make a big deal about 25 or so guys wearing organic cotton warm ups? How much does an organic cotton warm up really even help the environment vs a conventional one?

I would guess the environmental impact in organizing this event vastly outweighed any benefit that comes with it, much like the majority of these types of things.

Environmental groups should be pushing to burn waste for fuel in addition to recycling IMO. Given that burning the waste for fuel would reduce fossil fuel usage and clean up all the landfills, and if we started committing to it, the costs and cleanliness of it would likely improve substantially over the next 20 years.

However, we don't make commitments to things that would actually give us long term sustainability for our planet.

I don't think the organic cotton warm ups will make any environmental impact, because either way, unless the player is devious and just likes throwing jerseys in the garbage, then that jersey is either being kept by the player or given away as a collectible.

 

[collisrost]

Re:Bulls to

I agree Doug, the environmentalist movement is not really pragmatic enough to do the right thing. I've been involved in several projects which have an environmentalist component, although I'm a teacher trainer, so it's mostly been with an environmental educational slant.

But in my experience the major problem is that the people who are most involved in the envoronmental movement are idealists who aren't willing to come up with what they see as "compromise solutions." They would rather criticize something for "not going far enough" rather than praise it for being a step in the right direction.

What they need is far more pragmatic people who look for pure win-win solutions where business and government would be delighted because it would save money as well as save the environment. At the moment they seem to be more interested in raising "awareness" than in coming up with practical solutions. The NBA thing seems to be one of these gestures that has no practical value.

 

[dougthonus]

Re:Bulls to

collisrost wrote:

I agree Doug, the environmentalist movement is not really pragmatic enough to do the right thing. I've been involved in several projects which have an environmentalist component, although I'm a teacher trainer, so it's mostly been with an environmental educational slant.

But in my experience the major problem is that the people who are most involved in the envoronmental movement are idealists who aren't willing to come up with what they see as "compromise solutions." They would rather criticize something for "not going far enough" rather than praise it for being a step in the right direction.

What they need is far more pragmatic people who look for pure win-win solutions where business and government would be delighted because it would save money as well as save the environment. At the moment they seem to be more interested in raising "awareness" than in coming up with practical solutions. The NBA thing seems to be one of these gestures that has no practical value.

This matches my experience with these types of things. Plus often times, a situation which may not be ideal now, if implemented on a wide scale will become more ideal as technology improves with implementation.

The burning garbage for energy idea is one such thing with that. Right now it's only pseudo-practical in that the energy it creates vs the pollution isn't necessarily cheap, but the net pollution is better in that it's stopping the pollution from other energy creation sources that it's replacing and the pollution isn't worse than a landfill.

If we committed to this type of form of energy, we'd probably develop better ways to make it cleaner and cheaper long term and possibly solve the landfill problem and help solve the energy problem at one time.

 

[collisrost]

Re:Bulls to

Yes that's precisely it. The burning garbage for energy example is exactly the kind of thing they'd rather criticize instead of embrace.

To just give a counterpoint and be fair, there's been some very simple and effective solutions to environmental problems too. I have a friend who devised a way to use coconut oil as fuel for cars and there are increasing numbers of islands in the South Pacific where this gives an income to local coconut farmers and also reduces the need to import expensive oil. Another bigger example is of course the closing of the Ozone hole.

I suspect in the next few years under Obama there may well be a number of environmental initiatives that are practical and effective. I think the economic situation makes it much more critical for the USA to find energy alternatives which are domestically produced. It's going to be interesting to watch how that all works out.

 

[gustavsteim]

Re:Bulls to

dougthonus wrote:

How much energy and waste did we create to make a big deal about 25 or so guys wearing organic cotton warm ups? How much does an organic cotton warm up really even help the environment vs a conventional one?

I would guess the environmental impact in organizing this event vastly outweighed any benefit that comes with it, much like the majority of these types of things.

Environmental groups should be pushing to burn waste for fuel in addition to recycling IMO. Given that burning the waste for fuel would reduce fossil fuel usage and clean up all the landfills, and if we started committing to it, the costs and cleanliness of it would likely improve substantially over the next 20 years.

However, we don't make commitments to things that would actually give us long term sustainability for our planet.

Doug, I completely agree with you about the irony of creating waste to raise awareness about the environment. But NRDC, which is the group partnering with the NBA on this inititaive, is an incredibly effective and pragmatic organization that is doing great work. Partnering with the NBA is only part of their marketing strategy, not their overall approach to making an impact.

I think the NRDC/NBA partnership will help raise money for the organization at a time when nearly all non-profits are seeing big reductions in support due to the economy. So in that sense I think you can argue that this partnership actually could benefit the environment.

 

[chi_hawks_23]

Re:Bulls to

Fred wrote:

I'm speechless. This could be the dumbest idea since we traded Brand for Chandler. You know, we should really go green and play the game by candlelight. The last time the league went progressive, we were left with Valerie Palmer. If they replace my Kosher's Best with soy dogs, I'm going to personally fly to San Francisco and beat up every hippie I can find.

Wait....Eric Cartman. Is that you?

“Hippies, hippies... they want to save the world but all they do is smoke pot and play frisbee!”

 

[??? ??????]

The jerseys are just the front end of this. It looks like the NBA has been doing quite a bit for green week.

http://www.nba.com/green/

 

[SouL EateR]

Re:Bulls to

Great cause, Horrid unis though..