Super Bowl Sunday is just days away, and the NFL is attempting to make up for the approximately 500 tons of carbon dioxide the event produces by planting 3,000 red mangrove trees in Miami. The effort began in August and will continue through May. Now, i'm all about planting trees, but this idea seems a bit too superficial. Trees take in only 1/25 of the amount of carbon emitted by fossil fuels, and every tree that is cut down or killed releases all the CO2 it has gathered back into the atmosphere. But what would the Super Bowl be without all the glamour and grandiosity that define it? Could the two "best" teams (unfortunately the true best team lost to the Colts last weekend...) in the league just play a game, without the NFL experience Super Bowl theme park and the massive generators required to power all of it? This may be a touchy subject, mixing football and environmental babble, but it's nice to see that the NFL is making some sort of effort to combat the damage they've already done. Unfortunately, we're past the point in time when planting trees can control the massive amounts of greenhouse gas that we continue to produce. Perhaps a future half time show will revolve around windmills. Just think-- dancers waving flags around windmills, which simultaneously provide the power to light up the field. It's a little out there, but thats where we're eventually headed!

The NFL's environmental plan also includes buying renewable energy certificates from a company called Sterling Planet. The company creates these certificates by recording the amount of electricity generated by alternative fuels rather than fossil fuels, and business in turn can directly purchase renewable power, or pay for the certificate and continue using traditional energy sources. So the NFL is essentially investing money in alternative power, yet utilizing traditional, CO2 emitting energy at the same time. Again, I praise them for environmental awareness... if anyone can afford to buy off the atmospheric damage they cause, I guess the NFL fits the bill.

Kudos to the Sports industry for making the environment a priority. The World Cup in Germany, the Torino Olympics, and the IndyCar series all have made profound efforts to amend the situation, with organizers of the 2006 Torino Olympics claiming to have offset nearly 70% of the greenhouse gas emissions they produced.