Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Stupid Minds Think Alike
They must have gone to the Geo. Bush school of problem solving (h/t Jaded Thea):
NEW YORK — It’s red mangrove trees versus greenhouse gases at the Super Bowl in Miami Sunday.

The National Football League is hoping to tackle the game’s heat-trapping gas emissions by planting 3,000 mangroves and other trees native to Florida, but the plan could be more of an incomplete pass than a touchdown when it comes to global warming, experts said.

“It’s probably a nice thing to do, but planting trees is not a quantitative solution to the real problem,” said Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University.

The NFL began planting the trees in August and will finish in May. This year’s Super Bowl features the Chicago Bears against the Indianapolis Colts.

The NFL claims the trees planted in Miami, and at the last two Super Bowls, make the games “carbon neutral” because the trees will eventually absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, emitted at the events.

Power for the game and fuel for generators at the adjacent NFL Experience Super Bowl theme park, along with its more than 1,200 vehicles, will emit about 500 tons of CO2 on Super Bowl Sunday, according to the U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
I guess I should be more charitable. It's better than ignoring that there is a problem altogether. These are the kinds of things that begin to happen when a problem becomes conventional wisdom and can lead to real change.
Written at 9:51 AM by Greyhair.
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