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Monday, December 4, 2006

Monday Morning Sports Report

posted by on December 4 at 11:54 AM

Brad Steinbacher is on vacation, so I’ve been appointed to write the Monday morning sports report.

Apparently, the Seahawks won yesterday. (“Clutch superstars”? A “big division lead”? Can somebody translate?)

Anyway, here’s what I’m excited about: The 2012 Olympics in London, which aims to be the first “one-planet” Olympic games.

“One-planet living,” in a nutshell, means living in such a way that we would only need a single planet to support ourselves. Currently, if everyone in the world lived the way we do in the United States, we would need five planets to support us. Therefore, for our way of life to be sustainable, we would need to reduce our ecological footprint by four-fifths. London would need to reduce its footprint by two-thirds.

Toward this goal, the London Olympics will aspire to:

• Be “zero-waste,” by diverting away from landfills all waste produced by construction and the Games themselves;

• Minimize carbon emissions by using renewable and low-emission energy sources, including a massive wind turbine that will power the Games;

Offset all carbon emissions produced by the Games, including the massive emissions produced by international air travel;

• Increase biodiversity by protecting and enhancing the wildlife and habitat of the Lower Lea Valley, where the Games will be held;

Provide low-emission transportation and transit, bicycle, and pedestrian access to all Olympic venues, while banning cars from the Games;

• Use reclaimed, recycled, and local consruction materials;

• Promote local food and compost all food waste; and

• Use recycled and reclaimed water and water-conserving appliances,

among other ecological improvements.

Obviously, there are major challenges (financial, infrastructural, practical) to actually achieving all these goals. However, I applaud London for making an effort. Efforts to reduce the impact of the Utah Olympics in 2002, in comparison, were minimal, and included things like reducing energy consumption by 25 percent, restoring 2.5 acres of wetlands, and offering trees to local citizens at a 20 percent discount.

RSS icon Comments

1

The big sports story of the weekend was, of course, UCLA beating USC on Saturday. Some poster named "Seme" owes me an apology for implying that I was on drugs when I correctly predicted this outcome last week.

Fuck the Trojans. Private school punks!

Posted by DOUG. | December 4, 2006 12:02 PM
2

This is a sports report?

Posted by him | December 4, 2006 12:12 PM
3

Asking ECB to write a sports report is like asking... shit, I have no idea for a parallel. But it's a funny match.

Posted by Gomez | December 4, 2006 12:17 PM
4

When does Brad come back? His sports reports aren't exactly hard hitting...but at least they're about sports.

Posted by PA Native | December 4, 2006 12:24 PM
5

Aw, sports fans got tricked into thinking about something real for a change. Boo hoo.

Posted by djfits | December 4, 2006 12:28 PM
6

Clutch Superstars: Not Jerramy Stevens

Big Division Lead: Our division bites.

Posted by Translator | December 4, 2006 12:33 PM
7

I'm just waiting to see if the Brits will be cheeky enough to allow David Tennant to light the torch at Olympic Stadium.

Posted by COMTE | December 4, 2006 12:41 PM
8

By my calculations, the (Winter Olympics ratings-stealing) 2012 Seahawks will field a team on which the youngest players are 16 or so today. Born around 1990. Old enough to drive.

In contrast, the youngest participants in the 2012 Olympiad are currently nine years old. Still in their jammies. Hah! 9!

Posted by Lloyd Clydesdale | December 4, 2006 12:47 PM
9

Actually, I'm happy and impressed with ECB's sports report. I generally could give a toss about the 'Hawks but like to see more alternative takes on what's going on in the sporting world.

I'm surprised the Utah games had that much environmentalism going on. I grew up 50 miles from the Utah border and let me tell you they have no problems contaminating whatever they possibly can in that state. I will say a few more trees would help, so that wasn't a bad idea by the Salt Lake folk. Thank god the truly great areas are largely protected.

Posted by Dave Coffman | December 4, 2006 12:53 PM
10

By my calculations, the (Winter Olympics ratings-stealing) 2012 Seahawks will field a team on which the youngest players are 16 or so today. Born around 1990. Old enough to drive.

In contrast, the youngest participants in the 2012 Olympiad are currently nine years old. Still in their jammies. Hah! 9!

Posted by Lloyd Clydesdale | December 4, 2006 1:07 PM
11

No, the rare, non-contiguous double-post is not for emphasis. Something's screwy with the comments today...

Posted by Lloyd Clydesdale | December 4, 2006 1:14 PM
12

Let me get this straight, they're going to protect wildlife, and have a wind turbine big enough to power the Olympics?

Oh, I am so looking forward to the slaughter of indigenous fowl.

Posted by BC | December 4, 2006 1:14 PM
13

Erica, you missed the big story: the 2012 London Olympic Games are already massively over budget. Apparently somebody forgot (cough, cough) about the 17.5% value added tax in the UK. Oops! Then there’s rising construction costs. A leading architect declaring cost cuts may cause it to be the 'plasterboard Olympics'.

And in the center of the three-ring circus: a 400 million pound contract to a consultant whose job it will be to……keep costs down!

Posted by N | December 4, 2006 1:29 PM
14

"Promote local food" - won't that make the visitors happy - head cheeses, boiled meats, tripe stew and blood sausages - yummy.
Surely in the fine print somewhere is a disclaimer about fox hunting being a demonstration sport this games.

Posted by kinaidos | December 4, 2006 1:37 PM
15

"Erica, you missed the big story: the 2012 London Olympic Games are already massively over budget. Apparently somebody forgot (cough, cough) about the 17.5% value added tax in the UK. Oops! Then there’s rising construction costs. A leading architect declaring cost cuts may cause it to be the 'plasterboard Olympics'."

This could have been us - and Nick Licata's yeoman work to kill the 2012 Seattle Olympic bid is yet another reason to thank him and his staff.

Posted by Mr. X | December 4, 2006 1:43 PM
16

Yeah these sporting events never seem to break even, much less make money. There was an interesting story not too long ago on the Athens games and how the facilities are not being used/going into disrepair.

The Sydney group actually spent large sums to downsize the size of their Olympic Stadium and now have trouble themselves getting people to use the various venues.

The bottom line is that while I love sports, it seems rare anymore that a set of games, a stadium or venue is built without substantial taxpayer help- either up front or at the end of the day.

Posted by Dave Coffman | December 4, 2006 2:02 PM
17

I nominate ECB Head of Stranger Sports- looking forward to rest of the week!

Posted by bonehead's girlfriend | December 4, 2006 2:42 PM
18

Awesome win(albeit it was close) by the Seahawks sunday. We never win in Denver and we finally did win in denver. Matt Hasselback played with a wounded hand and Alexander kept up the momentum to get us in field goal range at the end. 20 / 20 I was biting my nails, angry at how we let the Broncos get back with 1 minute 40 seconds to play. Our city got a good kicker named Brown and his 53 yarder was perfect within 10 seconds of game time. I like the Seahawks playing Denver. It is a great rivalry to me since they used to kick our ass everytime down there. We beat the Raiders, St.Louis Rams, GreenBay, and now the Broncos. Still ESPN Big shot sports shows and sportscasters give us no love. Its always about the Saints or Dallas, or why the Steelers suck this year( I think its Karma). And when they do mention our Division its all about the losers Raiders, chargers, or . When thye mention Seattle (our team represents the city you know)its all we are lucky that Hasselback and Alexander are back. We did a lot to get where we are without them while they healed. Wallace deserves some love and respect(despite SF) and the defense is strong. Just ventn that we get no respect from the othe Major Sports networks shows.They always show slow motion plays with cool soundtracks for other teams games why not ours screw them. we are a city to be reckongnized. I want to see in slow motion Alexander going through the motions to catch a pass from Hasselback to the tune of SoundGardens Rooster or something from Metal Church
not on Fox but on ESPN. Terry Bradshaw show or something. Vent over. Seahawks give them hell again next week. I dont' care if they say its luck, you guys are still winning and the cities a lot more fun with you guys winning. I like wearing SEATTLE gear when I'm on the road in other cities.

Posted by sputnik | December 5, 2006 8:41 AM
19

Sputnik -- Metal Church refrence, nice.

I'd love to see "Dance of the Sugar Plum Faries" (though -- far from my means of delight -- homophope announcers would have a snickering field day with the word 'fairy') played on the stadium sound system every time Josh Brown comes out onto the field and kicks the wintree "nutcracker" with 10 seconds left to play.

Posted by Lloyd Clydesdale | December 5, 2006 9:22 AM
20

LoL true so true.

Posted by sputnik | December 5, 2006 9:56 AM
21

I'd say use "Ton of Bricks" when a Hawk makes a tackle (but while I love old Metal Church, football does bore me to tears).

Posted by Mr. X | December 5, 2006 11:43 AM

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