Green Sports Month kicks off October 1st!
The Inaugural Green Sports Month, taking place this October, will engage the sports world – especially athletes – to rally fans to take positive climate action. EcoAthletes and its roster of nearly 300 Champions – pros, Olympians, and NCAA student-athletes – will lead the way!
CHALLENGE
While several studies over the past five years have shown that majorities of sports fans and athletes have experienced the impacts of extreme weather caused by human-caused climate change, climate action at scale is far too slow to turn humanity away from the carbon cliffs we are approaching. Sports, given its massive cultural influence, needs to engage millions of fans worldwide with messaging and programs that encourage them to take and demand environmental action. To date, this has been rare.
GREEN SPORTS MONTH – CONVERTING AWARENESS INTO CLIMATE ACTION
The inaugural Green Sports Month features a global series of in-person, hybrid and virtual events, webinars, podcasts and more that will engage athletes to rally their fans and followers to take and demand real climate action. Here is a sampling:
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Getting Sports Fans Into The Climate Game
Monday October 5 (in person, 5:30-7p ET Philadelphia, PA)
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In-person and virtual panel event at University of Pennsylvania Climate Week, moderated by climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann, Director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media and featuring EcoAthletes Champion panelists:
Sam Mattis (Penn ‘16), 2X Olympian discus thrower
Makenna Damhorst (Penn ‘27)
Gymnast; David Rolands (Penn ‘27), football
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How to Talk About Climate in a Sports Setting: A Conversation with Dr. Katharine Hayhoe
Tuesday October 6 (virtual, 1:30-2:05p ET)
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Climate scientist and world class climate communicator, “Talking Climate” podcast host and substack writer. Hosted by Sport Positive Summit and moderated by EcoAthletes CEO Lew Blaustein.
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Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston, the biggest rowing race in the world (10,000 rowers; 400,000 spectators)
Friday October 16- Sunday October 18 (Hybrid)
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EcoAthletes Champions in the Boston area will:
Produce/Distribute a Green Guide for fans so they can green their HOCR experience, from finding that great plant-based restaurant to knowing where compost and recycling bins are located on the banks of the Charles and much more.
Host a Panel: “How Sports Can Row In a Climate Action Direction” (Friday October 16; Time and Location TBD
Stay tuned for details on Green Guide and panel
PLOGTOBER!
Plogtober is an October-long, global plog-a-thon, with plogging being a mashup of jogging or walking and picking up trash along the way! Anyone, anywhere in the world, can do it – individually, or much better, as a group! While each individual plogger picks up only a modest amount of trash, when masses of people plog, that makes a difference. Plogging has two more important benefits. It:
Helps reduce pollution in local areas, which has important climate benefits: The ocean stores 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere, and plastic waste reduces that important ability. If certain types of trash are left unattended, they will degrade and leach methane, a greenhouse gas 80-100X more potent than CO2
Serves as an on ramp to greater environmental action and activism for ploggers.
EcoAthletes Champions – from Pakistan to Paraguay to Pennsylvania and beyond – will lead Plogtober plogs.
Our goals for Green Sports Month are audacious:
To make October a month-long quest for sports-lovers around the world to take more and more climate action every year!
To Become the Ice Bucket Challenge of the Green-Sports World!