I must give Duke University an ‘A’ for its eco-effort at last night’s game against N.C. State. The game was the first in a series of activities promoted by the Duke Students for Sustainable Living that would incorporate educating the Duke community about ways to reduce your carbon footprint into a wide variety of Duke events, including highly publicized basketball games.
However, what was meant to make an environmental impact only ended up impacting on the floor!
The Purpose for the Plan
In an attempt to show how devoted the Cameron Crazies - Duke’s highly supportive and slightly obsessed student fans ‘ were to both the team and the environment, almost all of the students wore new green shirts with the words ‘Bleed Blue, Live Green’ on the front. This was to promote Duke’s partnership with Focus the Nation, an organization that educates students about global warming, and with Native Energy, a renewable energy company.
Duke was also going to purchase carbon offsets that would equal the total amount carbon dioxide produced from the game. This would include all the electricity generated during the game, as well as the gas emissions produced by the transportation to and from the game.
Fans Gone Wild
However, much to the fans’ dismay, the Blue Devils were down by 9 points at halftime. This was unacceptable in their eyes, and even though they care about the environment, they obviously care more about the Blue Devils winning!
So, for some reason beyond my comprehension, and since Duke victory is somehow associated with the traditional blue colors that they wear, the fans who believed that the new green shirts were bad luck for the team took them off and threw them on the court! Luckily for the players on the court the cheerleaders did a great job of picking the shirts up.
Taking off the shirts must have worked some sort of magic for the team because the Blue Devils ended up beating the Wolfpack 92 to 72!
Even though this green initiative didn’t quite work out for the school’s efforts for sustainable practices - maybe because it was rolled out during a fan-crazed sporting event - Duke will still continue to spread its environmental efforts throughout the community. I just hope that they organize better, and safer, ways to spread the green word in the future!
