Fencing Changes re: Ecology / Economy

[Foiltooth]

With increasing awareness of the human effects on global warming, coupled with an ever-declining US economy, I'm wondering if the fencing community feels that changes could or should be made to somehow relieve fencers from the pressure to travel so much. Can requirements for points somehow be alleviated in order to take away the need to fly halfway (or all the way) across the country in order to qualify for certain events or remain on the point standings? As fencers, we may live in a bubble figuratively, but we sure don't literally.

After all, if you consider all the travel that fencers incur, that's one hell of a carbon footprint!

In addition to the environmental effects, the more expensive things get for fencers, the fewer participate in the sport. Are there any steps that the powers that be can take to prevent the sport from getting even further out of control cost-wise? In other words, how to prevent it from becoming even more of an elite sport than it already is?

I know there are no simple, and certainly no quick, solutions here. But perhaps some decisions could (should?) be made that could have significant effects on our fencing community - as well as the global community.

Anyone else agree? Anyone strongly disagree? Anyone have any ideas?

[jjefferies]

Originally Posted by Foiltooth

Anyone else agree? Anyone strongly disagree? Anyone have any ideas?

As a conservative estimation look at California. Total number USFA membership is 2515. Total population in California is 36,457,549(estimated not allowing for illegals). Dividing the 1st by the second gives us: .000069 or .069%. Allowing that less than half of that number takes part in National Events. I give the impact of fencers as less than minute.

Respectfully submitted.

[Foiltooth]

Your numbers get to my point. Fencers take up small part of the population, but use proportionately more energy. For example, the US has 5% of US population and consumes 25% of worlds energy.

In any case, you could argue that the impact is less than "minute," but is that a reason to ignore the issue?

[TrainingDummy]

Shut down NASCAR first, there's your polluter.

[Hobbes]

Originally Posted by TrainingDummy

Shut down NASCAR first, there's your polluter.

this.

[MHS Fencer]

/*rant ahead*/

Say you have 5 round trip flights a year from LA to Chicago, Terrapass (a carbon offset company) calculates this at roughly 1300 lbs of CO2e per round trip, which gives us 6500 lbs or roughly 3 metric tons. Say there are 5000 people who do this trip, that gives us 15,000 metric tons. Now, this amount may seem large to the untrained eye, but it's a tiny fraction of US emissions. In 2005 the US emitted 6074.3 teragrams of CO2e, so travel by US fencers amounted to about .00000000246 percent of national emissions. The numbers for flights/distances/fencers are up for debate, but I think that I've probably padded it a bit. That's also allowing for only air travel and not counting car travel, which, for driving a thousand miles in a Ford Explorer, would double the emissions for US fencers assuming the same number of trips, so, multiply it ten fold and guess what, it still doesn't register.

Now, if you want to talk about simple solutions that are easily applicable everywhere (like CFLs or LED-based bulbs), great. Also, let's switch over our old coal-fired plants to newer Natural Gas Co-Gen or other more efficient technologies (although that exposes us to foreign fossil fuels vs. domestic coal, and, well, so many people hate nuclear because of the fear of the unknown...). What I'm trying to say is that the impact of changing something this small for GHG emission purposes is insignificant compared to the inconvenience that it would cause - do it because of cost or because the tournaments are unmanageably large.

Sorry for the rant, I'm just looking for an outlet after the USFA's posting regarding the election.

[bunbury]

Your numbers are incredibly off, unless you're trying to say that fencers all take solo-flights.

If you want to see some numbers:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/carbon.html

[Grimaldi]

If there's a way to reduce travel requirements and keep fencers' ability to compete meaningfully, I'd be all for it. Too many fencers have their progress blunted because of financial difficulties.

On the other hand, going through all of these changes because of the dubious premise of man made global warming (or climate change, or whatever else it's named) is silly. The idea that carbon dioxide output has any impact of temerature is tenuous at best, and the amount of carbon dioxide output saved by switching fencers' travel habits would be miniscule.

[edew]

Gee, didn't know Cheney is a fencer....

[Grimaldi]

Originally Posted by edew

Gee, didn't know Cheney is a fencer....

Nothing political about it. The thread starter is recommending major changes to the fencing tournament circuit for what? Trivial changes in global carbon emissions to counter an unproven hypothesis regarding man made global warming.

Just sounds like healthy skepticism and common sense to me. I'm all for reviewing the tournament system/format and improving things where needed, but this just seems silly.

[LordShout]

You assume that we wouldn't take these flights across the country anyway. By and large people are using their disposible income on fencing, if they stop fencing or stop traveling so far they'll just spend it on something else. Carbon cost per dollar is remarkably constant across leisure activities.

[Nolano]

In general, I think that things should be rearrange just so that being a top level fencer doesn't cost upwards of $40,000 a year.

Less CO2 output could be a positive benefit of that, but I don't think it should be the main cause.

[KD5MDK]

Originally Posted by Nolano

In general, I think that things should be rearrange just so that being a top level fencer doesn't cost upwards of $40,000 a year.

Less CO2 output could be a positive benefit of that, but I don't think it should be the main cause.

I think moving to Europe is the closest way to accomplish that.

[Allen Evans]

I suspect that being a top-level in any sport (except the professional ones, of course) costs close to $40,000 a year.

I would further offer that all fencers should walk to tournaments, improving their cross-training, and reducing their carbon emissions.

Allen Evans

[Grasshopper]

The real problem is women's epee farts.