In ‘Warming Up’, the world of sport’s newest adversary is climate change

Orr, a sports ecologist at the University of Toronto, draws on her academic expertise to describe how climate change is disrupting sports, whether it’s wildfires that nearly destroy a high school football program or rising seas engulfing golf courses. coastal While Orr bolsters her argument with data and interviews with experts, it is the personal stories that are most powerful. It’s the shocking story of University of Maryland college football player Jordan McNair, who died of heat stroke he suffered in practice. Orr, an avid skier, shares her beef with global warming by literally melting winter sports around the world — and the local economies they support.

In the introduction, Orr says that the order of the chapters is unimportant. But the chapters follow a loose organization, and grouping them into sections would have made the overall trajectory of the book easier to follow. The first 11 of the book’s 17 chapters focus primarily on how warming temperatures, rising seas, increased wildfires, and other effects of climate change are already affecting the industry and will worsen in the future (SN: 12/6/23; SN: 11/9/22; SN: 15.9.21). For example, outdoor pond hockey, an essential part of Canada’s culture and the starting point for many of the great ice hockey players, is in danger of disappearing altogether as winters get warmer and ice becomes rarer.

It’s refreshing to see Orr speak explicitly about how climate change is disproportionately affecting nations least responsible for global greenhouse gas emissions, a point that can be lost in Western reporting on the subject. High temperatures are threatening Kenyan runners. Rising seas are eroding a famous rugby beach in Fiji. A 2022 flood wiped out Pakistan’s sports leagues – along with much of the country.

But against the backdrop of the harrowing reality of climate change, Orr keeps hope alive in the final six chapters. The world of sport can adapt to climate change to reduce its own guilt and ensure that endangered sports survive. It highlights the past and present activism of athletes who are fighting for sustainability.

An encouraging example is Innes FitzGerald, a teenage runner who refused to fly from Britain to Australia for the 2023 World Athletics Championships because of concerns about the carbon emissions of air travel (SN: 14.5.20). Before FitzGerald, “no athlete had lost championship opportunities because of a moral qualm with flying,” notes Orr. Like climate activism in many other sectors of society, it appears that change in sport will be driven by young people.

Orr’s writing is authoritative and conversational, and while she sometimes slips into academic jargon, her language is largely accessible even to readers without a scientific background. The book is packed with information and has something for sports fanatics and casual fans alike. In the fight against climate change, Warm up tells us it’s time for the sports world to play ball.

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