Putting the earth in play: Environmental awareness and sports

Abstract

Since time immemorial, people have entertained themselves with sports. But even as sports promote health, they can also seriously degrade the environment upon which good health depends. Whether played or watched, Olympic in scale or limited to local slopes or greens, athletic endeavors have the potential to produce huge environmental "footprints" in terms of their use of natural resources. These impacts have spawned an environmental movement with two broad goals: to reduce the ecological footprint of sports activities, and to exploit the popularity of sports to raise environmental awareness in general.