Carbon footy

[helterskelter]

I am both baffled and confused!

Some 200yds from where I live is a Municipal leisure centre complete with playing fields for Rugby,Football,Baseball (English style) etc.

In a fit of spending madness the local authorities have installed a set of astroturf pitches,complete with security fencing and such.

So far so good,however a couple of days ago I received from my power supply company a Gadget to attach to my Electricity supply to help me monitor and presumably reduce my energy consumption. NIce gesture methinks.

This evening as it was getting dark I thought the Sun had gone into reverse as the whole neighborhood was suddenly bathed in a ghostly white light. They had switched on the lighting towers for the new Football pitches and a dozen happy chappies were battling over the possession of a ball. To help them see what they were doing several kilowatts of lights were switched on. Eight towers with 3 units a piece of what must be mercury vapour lamps.

Why should I bother to inconvenience myself with poor lighting and reduced heating,probably save a few pence-presumably to help save the planet- when down the road a dozen people are using more electricity than I use in a month just to play football for an hour.

Further reflection led me to realize that astroturf and galvanized fencing probably took a good few kilowatts of energy as well.

Oh well I,m off to turn up the thermostat and cringe when the bill comes in. And the Energy Monitor is in the (recyling) bin.

eddie

[tdockery97]

Interesting, isn't it? The government wants us to sacrifice to save energy/the planet, while they seem to be doing their best to counter our efforts. It's a crazy world we live in, my friend.

[Bob E]

This makes me think of golf courses. "The City" will fine you if you use water on your sun-baked brown lawn during periods of water restrictions, but by-golly, them golf courses are lush and green!

BTW, what's English style baseball? Are you talking about Cricket? I know what Cricket is, but I Googled "English style baseball" anyway and everybody wanted to sell me a hat.

[helterskelter]

English baseball,where the ball is thrown underarm because were a bunch of ninnies.

eddie

[The-Wizard]

BTW, what's English style baseball

I will assume you mean SOFTBALL

both the above are derived from the Olde English game of ROUNDERS

wizard

[Bob E]

Thanks Wizard, that clears up that mystery.

But it also leaves me with a cultural dilemma. Many years ago, there was a Chevy commercial on TV touting "Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet", implying all this iconic "American" stuff was the best of the best.

...let's see

Baseball > Origin > England
Hot Dogs > Origin > Germany
Apple Pie > Origin > England
Chevrolet > Origin > France

Man, we just take everybody's stuff and claim it as our own!

...and before any of my fellow Americans get their ego in a wad, this was written with a good sense of humor.

[I still bet this is going to cause problems. ]

[The-Wizard]

I work for General motors as a driver
i prefer Greek food
south American wine
Spanish brandy
and English real ale

so what chance do i have

[Bob E]

so what chance do i have

Those are your dice...you roll'em.

On a side note, what I wouldn't do to be sitting in a pub over in your neck of the woods and indulging in a freshly drawn Guinness.

Cheers.

[Phil Dodd]

At the risk of being boring ( I usually am ! ) , I work at a sports centre in my home town. We have an outdoor astro pitch as the original poster describes. The lights are expensive to operate and to replace. Strong winds are our enemy in that respect, as the towers shake, and break the elements. We've had a few glass faceplates shatter in the wind too, and although safety glass so won't cut people, they cause injury through being little hard chunks. We make a charge to teams using the pitch for using the lights, to cover the cost of the electricity. Unfortunately, this is the legacy way of operating lighting. We're not happy about it, and it will change. People need to be able to participate in sport in the evenings, though, if they are working in the daytime in sedentiary jobs.

The leisure industry is catching up with environmental issues. We'd be looking to replace those filament-based lighting with LED equivalents when they are available for outside. Inside, we've already gone to low-energy bulbs and moving towards LED ones. Lighting in all but main corridors is on movement detectors to switch off when areas are unoccupied. All water taps are spring-operated so nobody can leave a tap running. We have timeclocks to ensure that electrical gadgets go off when the buildings are empty. Heating systems are being switched to using condenser boilers. We're about to embark on mounting solar panels on the roof which will reduce that carbon footprint.

I can't speak for the centre near to where the original poster lives, but economics and concerns about the environment mean that we are doing as much as we can to become carbon efficient.

One thing that we did three years ago now was to replace our PCs, which were at the end-of-life, with thin clients. This has saved considerably on carbon emissions, if you imagine how many computers are needed in leisure. We also only have one printer per centre. Our online systems are now entirely screen-based and need no printing for normal use. Our paper and card is all recycled.

All the above is not complacency - we are genuinely trying...

Incidentally, at home I have moved from a PC to a netbook as my normal everyday machine, so that I can reduce energy consumption in the winter months and only have to heat one room, as the netbook is mobile - a case of spending money to save money...

What ways can fellow forum members recommend to cut their carbon usage ?