Saturday, January 3, 2009

Super Bowl 2009 - The "green" game?

Super Bowl 2009 is almost here, and the NFL Environmental Program, in partnership with the Tampa Bay host committee, is taking steps to make the game more Eco-friendly this year. Some of these initiatives include:

- Recovery of prepared food from events

- Solid waste recycling

- Donation of all leftover building and decorative materials to local nonprofits

- Use of renewable energy to power the NFL Experience Football Theme Park and the stadium on game day

- Collection of used books and sports equipment for local schools and youth agencies

- Travel offsets for the teams and NFL officials traveling to Super Bowl XLIII


For the game in Tampa Bay, there will also be thousands of trees planted to reduce the carbon footprint of the game. This is the fifth year that the NFL has incorporated tree planting projects in the host city, typically in association with the US Forest Service.

While it is commendable that the NFL is taking these steps, I still feel like more could be done to not only "green" the Super Bowl, but the NFL in general. Many of these initiatives could be applied to all of the regular and post-season games as well. The NFL has the resources to expand this program to include more creative ways to make the league environmentally sustainable. It is a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done to make the game of football truly "green."

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Fountain of Youth

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that science has come a long way, and still making significant discoveries and advances. One particular area I would like to discuss is the realm of human health and biology. Two hundred years ago, one was considered a senior citizen at the age of 35. In today’s standards, this is merely middle age. At best, humans today are living to be a little over a hundred years old. Recent scientific advances have proposed that humans have the possibility of doubling, even tripling this incredible life span. This arises certain questions, particularly, health, environmental and social impacts, psychology, and finances, to name a few. These issues will be reviewed in the context of this article.

Firstly, when one considers the idea of living to be, for example, 200 years old, in what physical condition will this person be? Wheelchair bound, in a nursing home, nearly deaf and blind, or full of life and energy, like a twenty year old? I suppose that as long as the important biological functions are in tact (heart, lungs, digestive and nervous systems), then one is technically alive. The definition of alive then becomes too subjective. That is to say, at what point is one living or thriving? I would prefer to thrive.

Secondly, a question of environmental impact is considered. A human consumes a lot in one lifetime. How much would a person consume in two or even three lifetimes worth? By humans living longer, there will also be a peak point as birth rate continues to rise while the death rate does not decrease. This phenomenon will push the earth over its carrying capacity for too long, and the results will be disastrous. At this point, I envision that human life will become a commodity, with marketable birth rights, and taxation for living past a certain age.

There will also be great social impacts with this. With the increased amount of senior citizens, welfare, social security, and healthcare programs will all need massive restructuring. The US will become one big “Sun City”. Golf carts and Rascals will have their own lane. The national curfew will be five p.m... These are extreme examples, but not entirely improbable.

Human psychology will also be affected. The longer living individuals will have to cope with the stresses of their age, mobility, roles in society, etc, that will all be affected by being older. One has to consider how aging affects an individuals psyche. Will there be such thing as a “post-natural mid-life crisis” at 125 years of age? This has never happened before on a large scale, so it will unfold a whole new area of psychological research.

Finally, as worldly as it sounds, finances must be considered. In today’s society, most are living paycheck to paycheck. Very few have enough to live on after retirement, and those who do, really only have about 20-30 years worth of retirement living funds. How does one plan to pay the bills for 250 years? Can a 150 year old person work to earn a living? Will social security last for two hundred years? Or, on the other hand, will anyone that invested in their thirties and forties be the richest in the world, due to their very long standing rates of return on their investments?

The idea that I could live to be 200-300 years old, if not more, is very appealing to me, given a few conditions. It would require financial stability, good strong health, and a supportive social system in place. Imagine how much intelligence one could acquire in 250 years. It would be nothing less than amazing to say the least. The technology exists to make all of this happen, but what it is worth is up to us.