{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://web.archive.org/web/20140221043742/http://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/speeches/climate-change-threatens-sports", "Climate Change Threatens Sports", "2013-11-20", "2013", "2013-11", "Democrat", "House", "RI", "Sheldon Whitehouse", "W000802", "web.archive.org", null, null, "legacy", "As Prepared for Delivery on the Senate Floor\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tWednesday, November 20, 2013\n            \n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tMr./Madam President, I rise today, for the fifty-first time, to urge Congress to wake up to the effects of carbon pollution on the Earth.\u00a0 Climate change is taking its toll on our way of life\u2014on long-cherished American pastimes we do in the great outdoors.\u00a0\nNew Englanders, for example, have memories of ski trips in Vermont, ice hockey on frozen ponds in New Hampshire, or fishing trips off the coast of Rhode Island.\u00a0 All of these activities are fun and fulfilling, and leave us with indelible memories of the wonders of our natural world, but climate change is putting many of them at risk.\u00a0\nThe New York Times reported that declining snowfall and unseasonably warm weather were a drag on winter sports and recreational tourism during the 2011-2012 winter.\u00a0 Before the end of the century, the number of economically viable ski locations in New Hampshire and Maine will be cut in half; skiing in New York will be cut by three-quarters; and there will be no ski area in Connecticut or Massachusetts.\u00a0 Rhode Islanders have been skiing our beloved Yawgoo Ski Valley since the 1960s, and we don\u2019t want it threatened by climate change.\nAs drought and increasing temperatures reduce the snowpack in the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains, the future of ski and snowboarding there is at risk.\u00a0 The Park City Foundation in Utah predicted an annual local temperature increase of 6.8 degrees Fahrenheit by 2075, which could cause a total loss of snowpack in the lower Park City resort area.\u00a0 Beyond the loss to the skiing tradition in Park City, the report estimates that this will result in thousands of lost jobs, tens of millions in lost earnings, and hundreds of millions in lost economic output.\u00a0\nNo part of the country will be immune from these changes our carbon pollution is driving.\u00a0 Studies have found that extremely warm days in the Southeast are on the rise; ice on the Great Lakes is forming later and disappearing earlier; rain will continue to decrease on the Great Plains; wildfire seasons are getting worse in the West, where the snowpack is melting earlier; sea-level rise threatens Hawaii\u2019s famed beaches, and warming in Alaska is degrading the permafrost that entire communities are built on.\u00a0\nClimate change has already changed rainfall patterns and can load the dice for bad weather conditions like heat waves.\u00a0 This past summer, a heat wave prompted the Kenosha public schools in Wisconsin to cancel all outdoor student practices and sporting events.\u00a0 The district stated on its website: \u201cKeeping the best interest of our athletes in mind, we are canceling/rescheduling all contests today.\u201d\nAccording to the Denver Post, this past spring, a prolonged drought forced the Denver Parks and Recreation to postpone opening of the grass sports fields for soccer and lacrosse, which kept thousands of children and adults from starting their athletic seasons.\u00a0\nFor some, warmer temperatures mean more time inside because the air is just not fit to breathe.\u00a0 Ground level ozone, commonly known as smog, forms more quickly during hot, sunny days, causing asthma attacks, emergency room visits, and even hospitalizations.\u00a0 In August, I met with two Rhode Island children, Nick Friend, a fifteen-year-old from East Providence, and Kenyatta Richards, an eight-year-old from Warwick, who have asthma.\u00a0 They have to stay indoors and avoid being too active on bad air days.\u00a0 We had six bad air days from ozone in Rhode Island this year.\u00a0 That is six days when Rhode Islanders like Nick and Kenyatta can\u2019t enjoy the outdoor activities that are so much a part of our American childhoods.\u00a0\nThe effects of climate change aren\u2019t limited to hotter days and smog.\u00a0\n[Show SI Cover Page Chart]\nOceans are warming, ice is melting, and sea levels are rising.\u00a0 This puts coastal infrastructure like dams, bridges, and power plants at risk, but it also threatens many of our most beloved\u2014and expensive\u2014palaces of sport.\u00a0 As far back as 2007, Sports Illustrated ran a special issue on Sports and Global Warming.\u00a0 \u201cScientists project up to a one-meter increase in sea level by 2100,\u201d warned one article, \u201cwhich will alter the shape of the land in low-lying regions of the\u00a0U.S.\u2014including\u00a0San Francisco Bay\u00a0and South\u00a0Florida\u2014and swamp well-known sports venues.\u201d Places like the American Airlines Arena and Sun Life Stadium in Miami, and AT&T Park in San Francisco are at risk.\u00a0\n[Show Sports Logo Chart]\nAs Congress sleepwalks through history, blind to the harmful effects of carbon pollution, responsible groups are acting\u2014including our major professional sports leagues.\nNBA, MLB, NFL, NHL.\u00a0 Letters that almost every American knows.\u00a0 These leagues and their teams are cultural institutions.\u00a0 They\u2019re also big business, with annual revenues in billions of dollars.\u00a0 They take the threat of postponed games and washed-out stadiums seriously.\u00a0\nEarlier this year, the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change, which I started with Representative Henry Waxman to keep attention focused on climate change and what we can do to address it, asked the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, National Hockey League, and National Football League, as well as the United States Olympic Committee, to tell us what climate change means for their sports.\u00a0\nEach of these organizations is awake to the dangers of carbon pollution, and they are acting.\nBaseball Commissioner Bud Selig wrote to the Task Force:\n\"I have often said that Baseball is a social institution, and to that end we recognize our responsibility to be part of the national effort to preserve our environment.\u00a0 And that is why MLB and many of our Major League Clubs have adopted practices that have resulted in clean, energy-efficient ballparks and environmentally friendly baseball events.\"\nOne of those practices is the partial offset of the energy used at all the All-Star Game events, including FanFest, the Home Run Derby, and the All-Star Game, by Green E-Certified renewable energy credits, including wind and solar energy.\nNHL Deputy Commissioner William Daly wrote:\n\"Hockey\u2019s relationship with the environment is unique.\u00a0 Our sport was born on frozen ponds, where to this day\u2014players of all ages and skill levels learn to skate.\u00a0 For this magnificent tradition to continue, it is imperative that we recognize the importance of maintaining the environment.\"\nThe NHL has partnered with ENERGY STAR and the Natural Resources Defense Council to make its own facilities more energy efficient, and it has called on the U.S. government to develop a nation-wide retrofit strategy to help upgrade buildings such as ice rinks and to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.\u00a0\nKathy Behrens, Executive Vice President of Social Responsibility and Player Programs at the NBA, told us:\n\"While Professional NBA games are played inside climate controlled arenas, most basketball around the world is played outdoors.\u00a0 If air pollution, extreme heat, and other forms of climate disruption make it difficult to enjoy or attend our game and, of much concern, actually threatens the health and safety of basketball players, fans, and business partners, that matters greatly to the [NBA].\" \nPro basketball is working to reduce carbon emissions through improved energy efficiency at its arenas.\u00a0 A number of NBA arenas have achieved LEED certifications and some have installed on-site solar panels.\u00a0 The NBA has also come out in support of standards to reduce carbon pollution from electric power plants, a cornerstone of President Obama\u2019s recently announced Climate Action Plan.\nAdolpho Birch III, Senior Vice President of Labor Policy and Government Affairs for the NFL, wrote us that:\n\"Twenty years ago, the NFL became the first professional sports organization formally to address the environmental impact of our marquee events\u2014Super Bowl and Pro Bowl.\"\nThe program to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions during every Super Bowl has resulted in the planting of more than 50,000 trees in the Super Bowl host communities.\u00a0 \u00a0The league estimates that the 2013 Super Bowl in New Orleans achieved a reduction of nearly 24,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, for the equivalent of 8,000 American homes\u2019 energy use for an entire year.\nThe U.S. Olympic Committee has also joined in the fight to reduce harmful carbon pollution.\u00a0 According to USOC CEO Scott Blackmun:\n\"The Green Ring program aims to mitigate the USOC and our athletes\u2019 impact on the environment through a number of sustainability efforts, an area that is a passion for many of our athletes.\u00a0 Through Green Ring, we hope to contribute to sustainability while using our platform to educate and inspire our constituents to do the same.\u00a0 Our focus is more action, less carbon.\" \nOther international bodies have also launched aggressive plans to fight climate change.\u00a0 The 2014 soccer World Cup in Brazil is aiming to be carbon-neutral by offsetting 2.7 million tons of carbon dioxide estimated to be generated by this year\u2019s Confederations Cup tournament and the World Cup next year.\u00a0\nOur major sports leagues join a great army amassing on the side of climate action:\u00a0 virtually every major scientific body; the insurers and reinsurers; the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the National Academies; NASA, and the Government Accountability Office; the U.S.\u00a0 Conference of Catholic Bishops; leading American and international corporations; and the American Public Health Association.\u00a0 To them, and many others, we can add our friends in the world of sports, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, and National Football Association, and United States Olympic Committee.\u00a0 There is a growing chorus of voices from every sector of American society calling for action.\nBut there is work to be done.\u00a0\nThe major sports organizations are doing their part because they know that few things define American society like the teams we cheer and the games we play.\u00a0 But we here in Congress need to join the fight.\nMr./Madam President, it is time to wake up.\u00a0 It is time to set aside the partisan nonsense and polluter-fueled fantasy and at last take real steps to preserve our American way of life.\nI yield the floor.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://web.archive.org/web/20140221043742/http://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/speeches/climate-change-threatens-sports"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.004462130367756, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}