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February 13, 2005
NASCAR Fresh Air
Today at the group home, I had the NASCAR Daytona 500 qualifications on the TV for one of the guys who likes to watch racing. It was just a coincidence that I was flipping through a men's fitness magazing and saw a little table with statistics about two of auto racing's hottest stars, Kasey Kahne and Dan Wheldon. Last year Kasey Kahne earned $4,759,022 and Dan Wheldon earned $1,640,790 for racing cars. And I think others like Dale Earnhardt Jr. or Jeff Gordon probably earn more than that with all of the endorsements they do.
What struck me as really odd, was that all around me, I'm reading about people like Jim who gave up his car to fight pollution and reduce dependency on oil and I'm even working on that myself. This idea of fighting global warming is important. But obviously not important enough when money is concerned. Auto racing is big money! It's kind of interesting that while one person is giving up their car on a daily basis, which in our society can sometimes be a sacrifice, another one is driving at speeds of 205mph to 220mph, consuming more fuel and releasing more toxins into the air than many normal cars, and getting paid millions of dollars to pollute the environment. I don't think any of these professional drivers will be giving up their cars or careers any time soon. I'm sure there are millions of ways to justify why this is ok. They most likely don't think about the environment and most racing fans probably don't consider the impact on our environment either. And if they did, would they still watch racing and buy their products? If the fans thought that this was an environmentally unfriendly human activity, and they stopped tuning in, then the advertisers and sponsorrs would have to drop their sponsorship for something that reaches the consumers. But as a consumer society our mainstream thoughts are not on the Environment. They are on things that bring us more power more control over our environment. So it's ironic that as we tune in, we are losing control over our environment and paying millions to do it.
Posted by carl1236 at February 13, 2005 09:02 PM | Love your Neighbor