ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines sport's complicity with our environmental crisis. It covers the basic theoretical concepts and material histories of the environment and sports. The book addresses motor racing, association football, the Olympic Games, and alternative ways forward. Beyond the lofty debates, floating to us from an all too dimly perceived history of philosophy, more mundane social science accounts of the environment proliferate. Deep ecology presents the most venerable and severe challenge to social science and public policy anthropomorphism. When greenhouse gases, environmental racism, global warming, and environmental imperialism appeared on the agenda, "pollution" transcended national boundaries. Sustainability has become a watchword for compromise, and greenwashing is one of its core tools. Sporting organizations engage in greenwashing to cover themselves, and are beneficiaries of others using them as cover—that is, sports like to look green, and polluters like to associate with them.
