Green World Cups

[Coulthard's Jaw]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20221206-what-would-a-green-world-cup-look-like

I'm all for more sustainable World Cups and sporting events in general, but "lets play fewer matches in really small stadia" is a no from me.

[DJ]

Carbon offsetting is BS anyway, mother nature can't be bought off with money. It might ease the mind a bit, but it is akin to buying pardons off the church in ages gone by.

The way I see it: our very existence is nature-unfriendly. The only thing we can do, is to try and limit the damage we do. And that needs to be done structurally. One event every few years is a drop in the ocean. Regulating that to feck is mere cosmetics.

If you want to seriously combat activities that heavily damage the environment, you need to think in terms of forbidding flying for things that could be done over the internet or partaking in things that are heavily polluting on a daily basis (cruise ships, shipping cheap but useless (and in themselves environmentally damaging) products from Asia to Europe/US), commuting to jobs that could be done at home. Buying stuff online that feed a need to deliver them, parcel by parcel, to individual addresses.

I'd even go so far as looking at limiting 'innovation' for certain products. The amount of waste and resource usage so that many people if not basically all of them can buy a new mobile phone every year (or two) and tossing their still perfectly working one in a drawer (and in the bin a few years later) is absurd, really. There is no need for that. Also: manufacturers need to be held responsible for their products. First of all they need to be durable (none of this planned obsolenscence/shoddy products that break soon) and they need to be held responsible for their products. If an electric scooter they produce ends up in a canal in Amsterdam, they pay the costs for cleaning up. They make money from it and should not glibly be able to wash their hands of it, knowing full well that this sort of thing happens. If that makes the product economically unfeasible, then so be it. 

If we are going to try and undo the damage, it will have to hurt. 

[Wolf_pd]

I am not sure the gain is in the world cup itself. However, if you can set up central qualification cities to play, that would do much more for travelling. It would be a back and forth travelling cost incurred for several teams, but instead of 1 match it would be three matches, which would limit travelling severely. Obviously there is the discussion over home advantage then.

I agree on the building costs though. Upgrading stadiums which would have happened anyway, is still a burden, but less so than building existing stadiums up from zero.

Travel to and from the World Cup is another one where you could gain. Qatar is an odd one here since it is difficult accesible, but going from Europe and Asia to Russia might have been an option by train. It just takes a little longer, but deal with that.

[enigmatic]

On 07/12/2022 at 09:58, Coulthard's Jaw said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20221206-what-would-a-green-world-cup-look-like

I'm all for more sustainable World Cups and sporting events in general, but "lets play fewer matches in really small stadia" is a no from me.

"Fewer matches in really small stadia" just sounds like everyone attending gets there by private jet anyway...