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Football & Climate Change


Peaty FC
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Reading today a wee article about the drastic affects some clubs experienced on their grounds attributed to inferred climate change, got me wondering what other folks here thought of what, if anything, football's response should be.

Assuming people buy into the need for visible changes in society (not a given) to combat the environmental changes, it strikes me that this is as good a time to re-visit the question of summer football to reduce the need for the likes of floodlighting and undersoil heating as a starting point. Personally, I have never been in favour of summer football before as the longer days affords too many other outdoor opportunities to enjoy free time but would accept that if smallish changes are to effective as part of a long term solution to reduce energy use, moving to summer football for nearly every club would be a step in the right direction. 

Also do we need the current level of international club and national games, fans and teams crisscrossing the skies on a regular basis?  Two recent years absurdities spring to mind of 2 lots of English club supporters jetting abroad for the Champions league final against each other - differing circumstances I know but nevertheless, could the locations of these games not have been re-thought and should the same circumstances occur again would the authorities run the same scenario? 

How do potential changes to our game work against those that earn a living or part of from the game and the wider economy should we try to reduce the intercontinental traffic for what is after all a wee jolly?  What other ways could a changed system work?

I realise that the world issues are massively complex and  far exceed the conversation on  Climate Change but as this is primarily a football forum, I ask the question relating to our wonderful game at home and  abroad, what should or could be done?.

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Good post.

I guess we'll find out at  the weekend whether the grown ups have the apetite to take the global problem seriously. It seems, from a poll in today's Guardian, that the public are not in favour of changing their lifestyle to save the planet. I'm afraid that lifestyle will change whether they like it or not.

People have to make changes. Why shouldn't football be proactive? I, like you, don't really fancy summer football. But I'm stuck my ways. It might be good for the game.

All the points you raise are sensible. I would add integrated public transport. Accessible stadiums, sharing stadiums. Returning clubs to the community rather than out of town lego stadiums with huge car parks. 

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19 minutes ago, Auld Jag said:

Any team looking to be more climate friendly could do worse than visit EFL 2 side Forest Green Rovers. They have been recognised as the world's first carbon neutral - football club and described by FIFA as the greenest team in the world.

Indeed.  FGR are the benchmark.

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4 minutes ago, lady-isobel-barnett said:

Rail travel is cited as the more eco friendly method of transport. Yet the SPFL (SFA) regularly re arrange fixtures that make a return to an away game impossible by rail. Of course the rail companies themselves don't make things easy but that's maybe another matter.

Buy a ticket to a Bundesliga match and local travel to and from the game is included. Integrated transport designed for people to travel! It'll never catch on, you know.

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Great topic opener! It shows another reason why the proposal to hold the World Cup every two years should get booted out sooner than later. I basically agree with all the points raised by Peaty FC, and have often wondered how much power could be generated by solar panels on huge surface areas of the Firhill stand roofs. And if there will be no development of the bing, then why not cover that in solar panels, or wind turbines? 

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7 hours ago, Jaggernaut said:

Great topic opener! It shows another reason why the proposal to hold the World Cup every two years should get booted out sooner than later. I basically agree with all the points raised by Peaty FC, and have often wondered how much power could be generated by solar panels on huge surface areas of the Firhill stand roofs. And if there will be no development of the bing, then why not cover that in solar panels, or wind turbines? 

Well, Firhill is certainly windy enough for turbines. But, is there enough sunshine up in icy North Glasgow for solar panels? Could we harness energy from the Firhill Basin?

Edited by Garscube Road End 2
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10 hours ago, Jaggernaut said:

 and have often wondered how much power could be generated by solar panels on huge surface areas of the Firhill stand roofs. And if there will be no development of the bing, then why not cover that in solar panels, or wind turbines? 

Why not just sign a midfield dynamo 

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On 11/9/2021 at 10:26 PM, Fearchar said:

Buy a ticket to a Bundesliga match and local travel to and from the game is included. Integrated transport designed for people to travel! It'll never catch on, you know.

The German teams have things sussed. I was able to buy tickets for a Hertha Berlin game online from Scotland and on arrival everything (including the stadium beers) ran smoothly.

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1 hour ago, fifexile said:

Simple suggestion. Move Saturday kick offs to 2pm in winter and save on floodlighting

Good suggestion.

But it can get pretty dark in winter even at 3 pm.

Another simple suggestion: stop playing football altogether in December and January.  Sure, the weather can be horrendous in November and February or March (sometimes even in July and August). But it's obvious that the worst time of year for playing football and for fans to get to matches is Jan-Feb. Any postponements in later months are easier to schedule/more likely to go ahead, and probably less need for undersoil heating if those two months are dropped,

Other leagues have real shutdowns in winter. Why don't we?

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1 hour ago, Jaggernaut said:

Good suggestion.

But it can get pretty dark in winter even at 3 pm.

Another simple suggestion: stop playing football altogether in December and January.  Sure, the weather can be horrendous in November and February or March (sometimes even in July and August). But it's obvious that the worst time of year for playing football and for fans to get to matches is Jan-Feb. Any postponements in later months are easier to schedule/more likely to go ahead, and probably less need for undersoil heating if those two months are dropped,

Other leagues have real shutdowns in winter. Why don't we?

Don't know, but playing the Devil's Dick Advocaat isn't global warming lessening the need of winter shutdowns?

To be less flippant it looks like climate change will make timing of set shutdown periods harder to determine. Extreme flooding in November and February, either side of a benign December and January for instance. The one thing we know for sure is it gets dark mid afternoons in winter, so the suggestion of earlier KOs should be a no brainer.

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19 hours ago, lady-isobel-barnett said:

Don't know, but playing the Devil's Dick Advocaat isn't global warming lessening the need of winter shutdowns?

 

Certainly not here- we are at grave risk of losing the gulf stream which keeps us much warmer than we should be given our latitude. Glasgow is approximately level with (55N latitude) with Alsaska, Labrador and Siberia. If we lose the gulf stream, we get their weather.

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1 hour ago, Duke Gekantawa said:

Certainly not here- we are at grave risk of losing the gulf stream which keeps us much warmer than we should be given our latitude. Glasgow is approximately level with (55N latitude) with Alsaska, Labrador and Siberia. If we lose the gulf stream, we get their weather.

I guess it's only natural to misplace the odd thing. But to lose an entire gulf stream would be the height of carelessness.

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It’s probably an unpopular opinion,  but the key thing driving climate change is the insane pursuit of endless economic growth, which is baked into our economic system. In football, you can see it as the money creeps into the game more and more every year, not merely  allowing clubs to spend more but basically obliging them to do so, to keep pace with the others that do in the pursuit of success and viability.

So, much like the ways in which people need to cut their cloth in their personal lives, it feels to me like introducing caps on spending, wages, sponsorship etc are the logical end point. That could curb the likes of private jets for player signings, the non-stop production line of branded (sponsored) tat, etc. Ultimately I think our economic system drives all of the commercial craziness in football, and the former needs to change for the latter to follow. However, in the current age, I just can’t see how that’ll happen.
 

It does, though, make me think of fan/community ownership and of how clubs might be possibly driven to more responsible stewardship by an ownership that also thinks long-term of their own lives and their families’ futures as much as their clubs’ immediate performance. Contrast that to a private owner who desperately needs a return on investment and/or a boast-worthy plaything. I guess, then, it needs whoever runs clubs to prefigure that sustainable mindset in the here and now, to hopefully build some momentum towards that line of thinking more generally.

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