Across the sports world, there is a new opponent: climate change.
PBS News Hour’s Jeffrey Brown spoke with Madeleine Orr, a sports ecologist and author of “Warming Up: How Climate Change is Changing Sport.”
“The big issue with climate change, the one that’s at the top of every sport scientist’s mind right now is heat,” Orr told Brown.
Rising temperatures have fueled the many weather disasters that affect sports’ bottom line, from thunderstorms that cause rain delays, to hurricanes that have completely swamped ballparks and massive wildfires that sometimes cause game postponements.
Organizers are trying to adapt sports in response, such as adding rest periods at the U.S. Open to help players cope with extreme heat and holding the 2019 World Championship marathon in Qatar at midnight to avoid unsafe temperatures.
“On the winter side, it’s essentially, ‘Are we going to have a season at all?’ That’s the question,” said Orr.
Major League Baseball footage used with permission of Major League Baseball. All rights reserved.
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