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TODAY Monday 17 November 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: World Cups (Soccer; Carbon Dioxide)

I am a stiff-necked narrow-minded American fan who wastes twenty minutes each morning on the sports section of the newspaper but cannot name a single player on the New York-New Jersey Metro Stars professional soccer team. I don't pay close attention to any game not played at St. Augustine's School, Archdiocese of New York, in the period 1952-1960.

The exceptions to that rule occur when players wear the uniforms of their nation states. If we can't have battles between scores of thousands of men in Napoleonic-era drag queen costumes, then let's watch TV when they broadcast games where the honor of the fatherland is borne on the shoulders of valiant youth wearing jerseys and shorts of the national colors. It doesn't matter what the sport is, actually, so long as we know that the folks back home care about it to an insane degree. Turks and Bulgarians wrestling, Indians and Pakistanis playing field hockey, and Kenyans and Ethiopians running each other to death in the steeplechase.

Patriotism may be the last refuge of scoundrels, as the saying goes, but I love it as a spectator sport.The tin soldier militarism of national athletic contests provokes a passionate interest among people, especially men, and it makes for a fabulous spectacle. Nowhere is this more evident than in the quadrennial World Cup of soccer. Much more than the Olympics, the World Cup stirs national passions wide and deep. It is the most viewed event on television as well as the most emotionally powerful.

The World Cup takes place next year in France. This year has been the time for the round-robin eliminations that produce the regional winners that will gather in 1998 for the month-long final tournament. The US team will be there as a severe long shot. The favorites: Argentina, England, Romania, and, as always, Brazil, Italy, and Germany. Nigeria could break through. It is heaven to live in New York during the World Cup, for all you have to do is go to the appropriate ethnic bar and watch every game surrounded by berserk emigres.

I only wish the upcoming Kyoto conference on climate change would be one-tenth as entertaining and provocative. It is probably too late to ask the delegates to wear bright-colored uniforms, but at least now we have the statistics comprehensive enough to make standings and draw up the seeds.

Thanks to a survey just issued by the International Energy Agency (and available in summary form at Planet Ark), we have the latest dope on global carbon dioxide emissions. There are two main indices: total CO2 emissions, per country; and national CO2 emissions, per capita. One country leads in both categories. Can you guess?

That's right. We emit the most CO2 (24% of the world's total) and the most per capita (20 metric tons a person). The Chinese contribute 14% of all the C02 but only two-and-a-half tons per capita. India, with fewer people, less coal, and warmer climes, emits under 4% of the C02 at a rate of less than one ton per head. Who can be surprised that they don't want to be hectored by Americans or Germans (11 tons per capita) or Canadians and Australians (16 tons each)?

There is a rough correlation between per capita purchasing power and per capita C02 emissions, but the disparities are interesting. Coal-fired Poland, for example, emits 9 tons of C02 per capita, while richer but nuke-powered France emits only 6. Seedy Russia is at 10 tons per capita, one more than prosperous Japan. So China and India and Indonesia (1 ton) and Brazil (2 tons) can see that the wealthy can be more energy efficient than the wannabes, but they have no evidence that you can be wealthy on less than 6 tons of C02 per capita. If that's doable, they say, fine; you go first.

Bill Clinton is probably right to believe that the only way that Number-One-In-Emissions America is going to lead the way is if it becomes Number-One-In-Solutions America. The dread "technical fix" approach. Materialism. An approach that rewards cleverness, ingenuity, diligence, creativity, organization, hedonism. Hydrogen cars, closed-loop manufacturing, recycling systems that work for the lazy and inattentive. U-S-A!

Don't bet on the soccer team.

 

TODAY ON THE SITE

Speaking of sports, we were criticized recently by a Boston radio producer who didn't "understand" why we have a High Five feature on football. Simple: the author of that feature -- the estimable DJ LaChapelle -- is the person who sees to it that this column and most everything else on our site gets posted each day. Yesterday, DJ's Packers lost to the heretofore hapless Indianapolis Colts. Cut the guy some slack.

 

Recent "Today" columns:

11/14: Amtrak, My Amtrak
11/13: Tim Wirth's Excellent Adventure
11/12: Monsters of Wellesley, Massachusetts
11/11: Armistice Day and the Next Great War
11/10: Mea Maxima Culpa
11/07: Inflexible Flyers
11/06: Meaningless Votes, Really
11/05: In Praise of SeaWeb
11/04: Reality Check
11/03: Green Loafing
10/31: Guilty Nationalist Pleasures

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