Some may deny it but the fact is we live in an age of climate change emergency and this emergency will continue at least for as long as the levels of atmospheric green house gases keep going up every year.
This means that everyone must do his/her part in tackling this great challenge. Here, at the Canadian Memory Championships, we believe that we can make a big difference. We can incorporate as part of the score of each competitor a climate change adjustment value, rewarding those athletes who lead the way, not just in the sport but where it matters even more, in fighting climate change.
We also feel that every sport organization needs to incorporate such change. Veganism or plant based nutrition contributes much less greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and so veganism needs to “score”. How many vegan athletes are there in your team? How many on the other team? If there are twice as many vegans in one team as there are on the other team, then whenever the team that has more vegan scores, that point must have it’s value increased a little. Let’s take hockey for instance:
If one team is completely vegan and no one is on the other team, then you take the average number of goals in a regular game, which maybe about 6. Divide it by 10, to get 0.6 and you add that value to every goal scored by the vegan team. 2 goals would give 3.2 points, instead of 2. and so the other team would have to score 4 goals to win! But if the ratio of vegans to non-vegan is 3 to 1 then instead of adding 0.6 points to each goal, you would just add 1/3 of that which is 0.2 point. So two goals would give 2.4 points and so the other team would need only 3 goals to win!
In basketball, there are maybe an average of 150 points scored in games in total. Divide that by 10 to get 15. And so, a full vegan team playing against non-vegans would have 15 bonus points added to their scores as soon as they’d get 25 points or 15/25 equals 0.6 points added to every point they make under normal rules.
The above represents one type of adjustments. But more adjustments can and should be made as there other ways in which sport are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. A team that plays in an arena where only vegan/ plant based food is offered could get some extra bonus points in there game as well if the other team isn’t doing the same at their home base.
Also, how do players get to the game location? Is the least carbon producing means of transportation selected? Women are generally far less of a concern when it comes with carbon emissions and so is your sport team featuring at least equal numbers of men and women? If not, a climate penalty need to be imposed. Also, we need to think about those who have more to lose from climate change: young people. Given that past generations of greenhouse gas emitters have and are denying them a normal future, it would make sens for the sake of social justice to give them a score bonus too. Social justice is, according to climate change expert a key aspect that we need to work on in order to tackle climate change effectively. So, let’s do it!
Also, what is the greenhouse gas impact of the venue where the team plays? It will obviously be more energy demanding to maintain an ice surface for hockey players in Florida than in Montreal. So unless this energy isn’t coming from greenhouse producing facilities, then that too should impact the game score when the Florida team meets the Montreal team.
As the Canadian Memory Championships is the first organization to argue the need for sports to do more in dealing with the climate change emergency, please contact us if you support our lead. We would be very happy to hear from any professional athlete or sports organization that want to do their part in fighting climate change. We want to hear from you and we could publicize your support. contact@canadianmemorychampionships.ca . This would go a long way to help fight climate change. Thank you.
Athletes need to be role models for young people and so they must show that they are very mindful of their own greenhouse gases emission. It’s only when you don’t want role models in sports that you can say that this doesn’t matter. And we want to change that attitude for a kinder spirit in all sports.
Canadian Memory Championships 