Mangrove Trees. (AP Photo)
Who knew that the NFL was concerned about global warming? I didn’t – I always thought the main concerns of the NFL were their football games. Apparently the National Football League is planting about 3,000 red mangrove trees as well as other trees that are native to Florida in an effort to combat global warming. They began planting these trees in August and they intend to finish in May.
The NFL believes that planting all these trees around Miami make the games “carbon neutral” in that the carbon dioxide emitted at the Super Bowl events will eventually be taken up by all these trees.
This made me think of that worksheet we did a few weeks ago comparing and contrasting planting trees and raising fuel efficiency standards. I remembered that a typical tree can absorb 13 pounds of CO2 per year. So if the NFL does plant 3,000 trees around Miami:
3,000 trees(13 lbs. CO2/yr) = 39,000 lbs of CO2 absorbed in Miami after one year.
Converted to tons: 39,000 lbs./2,000 lbs. = 19.5 tons of CO2 absorbed in Miami after one year.
The Super Bowl is expected by the U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory to emit, including power, fuel, and more than 1,200 vehicles, about 500 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere on Sunday. Now let’s compare these two numbers: 500 tons emitted, but only 19.5 tons of it will be absorbed by these trees after one year.
19.5 tons/500 tons (100%) = 3.9%
Only 3.9% of the CO2 emitted on Sunday will be taken up by these 3,000 trees after one year. That is a very small percentage.
Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University, said, “It’s probably a nice thing to do, but planting trees is not a quantitative solution to the real problem.” After that calculation, I’m going to have to agree with Caldeira. What the NFL is doing is a good gesture, but it really isn’t going to help much in the big picture. Like we determined on the worksheet, we are much better off raising fuel efficiency standards in order to reduce CO2 emissions rather than planting trees.
One last thing…GO BEARS!
Picture Credits: http://accuweatherbak.ap.org/apdbs/Intl_Photos/views/micro/31958/31958938.jpg
http://accuweatherbak.ap.org/apdbs/Intl_Photos/views/micro/30924/30924497.jpg
February 2, 2007 at 9:59 pm
I agree that planting all these trees won’t really do much, but hey! It’s better than nothing. And at least we’re trying. Most Americans pay way more attention to the NFL in a couple months than environmental issues in their whole lives, and when they read about this they might get a clue, or at least be aware of some energy issues. There was also an article in grist about this:
“The Super Bowl has incorporated green elements for 14 years, but the upcoming game will be the first to offset its emissions. Such football-licious sustainability comes hot on the heels of other sporting events that have gone for the green, including an ethanol-fueled Indy 500, climate-neutral soccer World Cup, and recycle-happy Turin Olympics.”
Maybe planting all these trees won’t help in the big picture, but its the little gestures that make all the difference, right?
February 2, 2007 at 10:47 pm
I was thinking about how I could relate the super bowl to an apes post but couldn’t think of anything, but I’m glad you did. I agree with you and Camille that the idea is great and all but only 3.9% of the CO2 emitted will be absorbed by the newly planted trees. I also liked how you found out how many tons of Co2 are expected to be emitted from Sunday’s super bowl. 500 tons is alot of Co2 and in the long run that will be more detrimental to the environment than the newly planted trees would be helpful.
February 3, 2007 at 8:47 am
Wow, weird, I actually just blogged about this same thing! We had been talking about how the Superbowl related to my Economics class yesterday, which gave me the idea of finding out how the Superbowl related to APES. I was trying to find some of the information on how much CO2 would absorb, but I couldn’t find it, so great job on posting that. Pretty much everything else I have to say about this topic is in my blog, so I guess you could just check that out.