June 24, 2008
Exxon Sponsorship Muddies 'Green' Nationals Park
Over at Grist, Mike Tidwell writes about how ExxonMobil, "the biggest contributor to global warming of any company in the world," has become the target of some Nats fans who see the oil company's sponsorship of the 7th-inning stretch at Nationals Park as hugely hypocritical given that the stadium is touted as being the first "green" ballpark in the country.
Tidwell is spot on when it comes to pointing out the best ironies in the Nationals-ExxonMobil marriage.
The Anacostia River, in fact, on whose bank the new Nationals Park rests, is itself a tidal river vulnerable to sea level rise. If the Greenland ice sheet melts as many scientists say is now possible, we'll get 23-feet of Potomac-Anacostia River rise in downtown D.C.! Ironically, the playing field at Nationals Park is already several feet below sea level. So the Exxon ad in left field could itself be under water due to our continued use of the advertiser's product!There's also now an online campaign to pressure the Lerners into dumping ExxonMobil as a sponsor. The people behind the web site are encouraging fans to boo when the ExxonMobil sign comes up on the scoreboard at the beginning of the 7th inning stretch -- and they claim it's working.
Photo of protesters from the Strike Out Exxon campaign at the Nats game on Friday night by Shaw_Girl
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No doubt some yokel tourist at the game, who by the 7th inning will have at least five $7.50 beers in him, will misinterpret the booing of ExxonMobil with the booing of the usual playing of "God Bless America", fights and hilarity will surely ensue.
But seriously folks, Exxon sucks.
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Is that ironic? I don't think it is..
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You know what else muddies the "green" Nats park? Leaving the doors to the ballpark conference rooms wide open with the A/C going full blast during "Planet Green" Night. Oh and by the way, Exxon Mobil isn't even one of the 10 largest oil companies in the world, so all this business about it being the "biggest contributor to global warming" is nonsense.
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Exxon does suck. And I definitely don't want to take up for them. I completely understand where the protesters are coming from and what they're trying to achieve. But I have to say, Friday was my very first time in the new stadium. And as much as I agreed with the protesters, I was more than a little annoyed at them. I just wanted to watch some baseball, not be approached with political causes. I had to dodge at least 5 of them to get to the gate. It was a guilt gauntlet.
I live in DC, so I fully accept that I am bombarded with political stances all day. I actually enjoy it. But you know, sometimes you just want to watch some ball.
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What a stupid protest.
What do we want?
No mention of Exxon in National Park!
When do we want it?
Now!
What will we do if we don't get what we want?
Dress up as bunny rabbits in 90 degree heat!
Why?
Because we're plushies and otherwise these bunny rabbit suits wouldn't get used in a public setting!
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welcome to capitalism. You don't like exxon sponsoring it then find someone else to put up the cash.
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I went to the Nationals/Rangers game last Friday. I saw the protesters outside the gate; they were being mocked by fans entering the park. There was a little girl in front of me that asked her dad what they were doing; the kid’s dad said they were baseball haters. I did not hear any booing at the 7th inning stretch.
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Steve12,
The reason Exxon is targeted is not because of its size, it's because it has been a (if not the) major financer of climate change denial groups for the past 15 years - basically the global warming equivalent to "tobacco doesn't kill people" "research."
It is not an exaggeration to say that the false impression of scientific uncertainty that these groups have worked to create among policymakers and the public has set back worldwide action on climate change by many years.
Since Lee Raymond stepped down as CEO two years ago, ExxonMobil has been less blatant about its anti-science agenda. Last year they pulled out of financing some of the more high-profile denial groups (e.g. Competitive Enterprise Institute). However, they still fund smaller groups that actively spread scientific disinformation; as far as I know they are the only oil company to still be supporting the "global warming isn't real" approach.
Okay, sorry, /rant.
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The real irony is that those bunny suits are made out of nylon or some other petroleum derivative.
That, and the tears of aborted baby seals burning in Hell because they could not accept Christ as their personal savior.
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'Baseball haters'! HA HA! If any team could make me hate baseball, I think the Nationals are on the verge of taking that prize.
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At least I'm from Boston and the National League just plain sucks anyway. DESIGNATED HITTERS FTW!
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DC...where baseball goes to die.
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Maybe they should be boycotting and booing Ben's Chili Bowl too. After all, the amount of methane released into the atmosphere 2 hours after 20,000 Nats fans eat there probably rivals ExxonMobil's daily contribution to global warming.
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Somegirl,
"Biggest contributor" to me means "biggest environmental contributor." I don't care what groups they're funding, they can do whatever they want. I don't like being harassed by idiots when I'm attending a baseball game. I equate them to people who try to start the wave.
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"At least I'm from Boston"
Sorry 'bout that.
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I've been boycotting overpriced baseball, environmental rapist oil companies, and people in bunny suits for years. Now, all three have gone too far. Exxon would use his puppet Bud Selig to cover the Seventh Inning in a Second Darkness.
Sons of Petworth, of Swampoodle, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day! An hour of rising sea levels and shattered shields when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight the last great monopoly! We fight the plushies! We fight Big Oil! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand! Men of the West!
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I am all for booing Exxon, but Mike Tidwell is a complete and total douchebag, and he is running CCAN into the ground.
If he google's this I would ask him how many people have quit because of him?
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"will misinterpret the booing of ExxonMobil with the booing of the usual playing of "God Bless America", fights and hilarity will surely ensue."
Thankfully the Nationals don't play God Bless America during the seventh inning stretch. That's like the lapel flag pin of baseball.
Unthankfully the Nationals do play that awful Sweet Caroline song. Any sort of ironic or nostaligic pleasure was long wrung out of that song even before the Red Sox starting playing it. We're like the kid who decided to start wearing a foam trucker hat, in 2007.
That's what people should be booing.
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So can we all agree that Exxon is not responsible for the climate change that happened 5,000 years ago?
In the history of the earth, climate change has always been driven by factors other than human beings. As for the current climate change, how much of that is nature and how much is man? That is the real question.
The UN is 90% sure that man is 51% or more responsible. They are people, maybe even experts, and both those groups can be wrong. What if man is only responsible for 10% of current climate change?
Climate change is currently happening on other planets in the solar system. That and other data leaves room for doubt. The science is not settled (science never is). Folks who keep stamping their feet claiming it is are not scientists.
There is quite a bit of data that points to anthropogenic warming, but not all of it does. Climate science is complicated and we still understand very little about that giant engine in the sky called the Sun.
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Reid, I've been to two games already (out of 5 total) during which they've played god bless america. It's the worst downer you could ever play during the 7th inning stretch. And to make all the players come out of the dugouts and stand and take their hats off and be reverent at the moment in the game is so dumb. I'm going to leave out many other arguments against it cause I think this is enough.
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I'm surprised that nobody picked up on the true irony here: that a stadium with minimal parking would pick a company that makes gasoline for cars as their corporate sponsor...
Regardless of the concerns about climate change, the Nats need to think twice about the branding of a stadium in a very liberal area of the country. Sure, whoever pays the most usually gets the naming rights, but the Nats also have to figure in other costs, like public perception -- Exxon is a four-letter word around here. It's the same reason why the SF Giants would never name their stadium "Halliburton Field". It'd be a P.R. nightmare.
What's more, for an organization that is trying to reach out to D.C.'s GLBT community (they even sell tickets for "Nats Night Out" at gay bars), naming the stadium after a company that has one of the least progressive records on gay rights is not a smart move, either.
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Wow, HCE, that is a BRILLIANT comment.
I do agree with you about Exxon, and probably oil in general. It's more about coal.
And of course it's LUDICROUS to think that humans can cause changes to our environment. Because I guess there really aren't that many of us.... and the earth is sooo big. And it's not like we have invented anything that is capable of destroying whole Micronesian islands.
We should really just keep driving our giant SUVs into the Chilis parking lot and not think about it too much.
F*ck science and logical thought processes. I'm going to go check out your probably creationist Flick album of your great great grandparents riding dinosaurs.
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"I've been to two games already (out of 5 total) during which they've played god bless america."
Hmm, maybe it's only during day games or something. I've been to four games this year and haven't had to listen to it.
For the record, this is why I don't like it:
1. It's not a very good song. It's boring and bombastic at the same time.
2. It takes away from Take Me Out to the Ballgame, a perfectly patriotic song in its own right.
3. It's the whole flag on the lapel thing. I'm not one who thinks patriotism is always bad, even patriotism that's a little coerced. But this is just maudlinism. The same sort of maudlism that leads people to sanctify every shred of a physical object that had anything to do with 9/11, regardless of the aesthetic failure that is a fountain made out of a bunch of bent rebar.
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Not so sure about "hundreds if not thousands" booing at the 7th Inning Stretch -- I was at the game on Saturday, and I certainly didn't hear any booing. But of course, considering that Texas had just scored 7 runs in one inning, people were probably too stunned to remember what the nice bunnies had asked them to do.
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I'm too lazy to correctly respond to Clarendon.. so I'll just say "shut up".
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God Bless America is played at all MLB stadiums on Sunday games. The Yankees play it at all home games.
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Politburo, I think you are too intimidated by logical liberals to respond to me.
If you were lazy would you have even posted?
Global warming is a problem.
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"Exxon is a four-letter word around here."
Perhaps in your group of friends and the people you're around, but I think the vast majority of people are indifferent. Most of the counties surrounding DC are some of the most affluent in the entire country. Do you think they don't have investments in Exxon and companies like it? Do you think they're rooting more for Exxon to contribute to the market, heat their homes, get them to work, etc or are they rooting for the half dozen morons in bunny suits who look like they're just protesting because it's an off day down at the IMF building?
I would also add that Exxon's largest or 2nd largest HQ is located in Fairfax and employs a fair amount of people in the area. (not me)
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alewis,
As a participant in the meeting where Exxon decided to sponsor the ballpark, I can assure you the "irony" of the parking/public transit situation was in fact discussed.
Exxon is trying to approach their PR from an 'energy literacy' standpoint and sees this venue as a great conduit for information to the public.
In addition, the ballpark was built by the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission, not the Nationals. DC has green building legislation and goals. Heck, even MLB has environmental goals. But the sponsorship of the stadium has very little to do with it being a green ballpark.
And finally Monkey, yes the bunny suits probably are made from petrochemical products and in addition to that, probably made in China, requiring them to be transported to the grand old U.S. of A
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...burning some sort of fossil fuel in the process, and driving up the total embodied energy of those freaky looking suits.
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@ Reid: Yeah 2 of the 3 games I've been to (all under the lights) have played 'God Bless America'.
You'd think playing the national anthem and having it sung by a Coast Guard glee club and having national guard folk come out and chat with the players would be enough...
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Clarendon,
If you swearing is "science", then leave me out.
Folks like you and ManBearPig have no idea what science is. When you stop questioning, it isn't science.
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Sons of Petworth, of Swampoodle, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day! An hour of rising sea levels and shattered shields when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight the last great monopoly! We fight the plushies! We fight Big Oil! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand! Men of the West!
Please, please tell me that you look like Viggo Mortensen.
But shouldn't it be "Men of Northwest"?
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Clarendon please don't call yourself as a "logical liberal", especially when you go off on a rant for no reason. While I don't agree with the goals of hand-waivers like HCE, they are still right. The science has not really proven anything. Unlike the hand-waivers, I don't think this means we should just sit back and watch.
Furthermore, your response to HCE was full of strawmen (and unnecessarily sarcastic.. it doesn't help). Far from "logical".
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But shouldn't it be "Men of Northwest"?
Northwest is alright for the fey small plate metrosexual set, but real men live in Northeast. They dodge gunfire in Trinidad, hiptards on H Street, and feast on fried chicken wings, Carlo Rossi spritzers, and eat punks like Mike Tidwell for breakfast.
Actually, I've been told that I have an uncanny resemblance to Harold Sakata. Right before I decapitate them with my bowler.
And if global warming means more American Apparel ad ladies in booty shorts and thong bikinis, it can't come fast enough.
Global warming's a problem alright. A sexy problem.
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Sherm: If you haven't noticed, the majority of wealthy suburbanites vote against their economic interests in favor of other concerns, like the environment. I don't think anybody is "rooting" for companies like Exxon; I think they see them as a necessary evil. So while the (possibly) few hundred people in Fairfax employed by Exxon are happy, the other 5 million Washington-area residents groan every time they fill up their cars.
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Exxon Bad Climate Change Bad etc etc... the Point of it all is lost.
The takeaway should be this - Nat's stadium was built in a manner and with materials that got it on the National Green Building list. That should be considered a good and progressive thing. So cheers for that. But people are mad because Exxon was the one who ponied up the cash? Well, shoot. maybe they should just take it back, and we can rebuild the stadium with un-earth-friendly and polluting materials. Then maybe The Cheaspeake Climate Action Netork, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, The Hip Hop Caucus, or Oil Change Internation will step in and provide what was probably millions to help get that Green status. (alternatively, they could just buy the advertising rights from Exxon, but then they'd have to give money to Exxon)
Boo the nats and the stadium because they accepted the money of Exxon in building a green building. they shouldn't have gone green. big mistake Nats.
ORRRRRRRRRR admit that maybe Exxon did something favorable with their extra cash. the horror!
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one more time b/c I don't think anyone read it - or maybe I wasn't clear:
Exxon's money did not pay for the green building. DC Sports and Entertainment Commission ponied up the cash for the ballpark to go green. to be honest, on a $611 million building, the premium was less than half of a percent. It was not 'millions of dollars'.
Exxon bought a sponsorship when the ballpark was almost complete - this money goes to the Nats, i.e. the Lerners. It is not related at a