{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Flanigan's Eco-Logic","title":"Allen Hershkowitz PhD -- Climate and Sports","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2045,"description":"Allen Hershkowitz PhD is an environmental scientist who joined Ted for an update conversation. Allen has worked at the confluence of climate and sports for 25 years. He first recorded on Flanigan's Eco-Logic in March of 2022 highlighting his early influences and early career... including 28 years at the Natural Resources Defense Council. There he met the actor Robert Redford who encouraged him to create an alliance of sports leagues and teams to promote efficiency, sustainability, and climate protection. That gave rise to the Green Sports Alliance which Allen ran for years. \nThe update starts off with the big picture: It is certainly encouraging, Allen acknowledges, that today nearly every major sports league and each venue has a sustainability plan. But Allen points squarely to the current rollback in federal support for greening. This has retarded progress and has made his work more difficult. And while top athletes earn huge salaries, sporting venues are business ventures. They are tight on cash and scrutinize all expenditures carefully. Allen discussed his current work for the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh Pirates, overseeing engineering audits of their stadiums, detailing their technical potentials at different returns on investment. Allen noted that many of his colleagues at venues wish that there were federal requirements for efficiency and greenhouse gas reductions... turning CFOs' view from \"would be nice\" to \" must do it.\"\nAllen mentions the Trump administration pulling the United States out of the Paris Accord, gutting the EPA and other agencies, and how these actions have deflated some of his American work, while Europe and Australia have maintained strict greening laws. In the early days of the Green Sports Alliance one of Allen's great triumphs was getting Bud Selig, head of the Major League Baseball, to say that climate change is real. A recent success was getting the Yankees management to host the United Nations at its stadium and to pledge its...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/7kUbICrzk0aEuZffrVBGprBuBqZJlmqp9h-fda_2pHg/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzM1MTQ0LzE3MTE1/NjgzMTctYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}