 In an interview yesterday, a New Jersey Nets executive, Julianne Waldron, spoke candidly about the real reason behind the Jason Kidd trade to the Dallas Mavericks. On February 19th of this year, the New Jersey Nets traded Jason Kidd, Malik Allen, and Antoine Wright to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for Keith Van Horn, Devin Harris, Trenton Hassell, Maurice Agar, De Sagana Diop, first round draft choices in 2008 and 2010, and cash considerations. Many New Jersey Nets fans were very unhappy about losing Kidd, a long-time star and future Hall-of-Fame point guard. Ms. Waldron, who manages environmental issues for the Nets, held a press conference to discuss last night's first “carbon-neutral” NBA game between the New Jersey Nets and the Philadelphia 76ers. The game was hosted by New Jersey, and all of the carbon emissions generated by fans and the 76ers traveling to and from the Izod Center will be offset by so-called “carbon emissions credits” purchased by the Nets organization and their partner Barclays, the British financial conglomerate. The game has been dubbed “Green Night” and also featured several environmental extremist groups providing propaganda to fans. In referring to the “greening” of the New Jersey Nets franchise, Ms. Waldron said that “I believe that this will be our strategy for years to come. This is part of who we are. Many of our fans were unhappy when we traded away Jason Kidd to the Dallas Mavericks, but they should be happy because trading Kidd was the best move for the environment.” Ms. Waldron went on to explain how the Kidd trade was the environmentally-friendly thing to do. “Jason Kidd always hustles when he is on the basketball court, and we all admire that greatly. But all of that running up and down the court, pushing the team out on fastbreaks, expending extra energy just to make a few extra points and possibly win a game, caused all of the players to breathe a great deal more heavily and thereby expel extra amounts of carbon dioxide into the air, and we all know that is bad for the environment. We made the difficult decision to trade Kidd in order to save the planet.”
“We have measured our carbon footprint before and after the Kidd trade, and we are happy to report that the team is now doing much less damage to the environment because they are not in such a hurry to get up and down the court. Sure, Devin Harris does hustle, but he does not make all of the other players on the court run, and so there is less carbon dioxide generated. Also, who ever accused De Sagana Diop of hustling? We like him a great deal because he is able to go from one end of the court to the other without damaging the environment by over-exertion.” When questioned as to whether the Nets organization had discussed with Kidd the need for him to limit his carbon footprint prior to trading him, Ms. Waldron responded by saying, “We had many discussions with Jason prior to the trade. You may recall that at one point Jason missed a game or two due to a migraine headache. I can now tell you that those migraines were probably caused by a valiant effort on Jason's part to limit his own carbon footprint through the use of what we refer to as “carbon dioxide credits.” Jason knew that he could not limit his own hustle on the court, so in a brave effort to save the environment, Jason allowed us to collect the combined expelled carbon dioxide of his team mates in the post-game clubhouse and he breathed in and effectively recycled the carbon dioxide of all of the other players. Needless to say, the debilitating migraines that resulted prevented us from continuing this effort to save the planet.” When asked whether the Nets organization had implemented any other environmentally-friendly steps of which the public was not aware, Ms. Waldron responded that they had counseled Lawrence Frank in the matter of technical fouls. “We felt that Coach Frank needed to understand the tremendous amount of carbon dioxide expelled and the resulting damage that he was doing to our planet when he was yelling at the officials. Our organization will not tolerate the continued abuse of the environment over such petty matters as foul calls. Coach Frank has been put on notice that the number of technical fouls assessed to him will be a determining factor in the renewal of his contract with the organization.” Ms. Waldron went on to comment about the hypocrisy of Steve Nash, point guard for the Phoenix Suns. “I don't understand how people can believe that the environment is truly important to Steve Nash. Sure his shoes are made of Nike Grind, but he uses those same environmentally-friendly shoes to push the Suns up and down the court. Have you seen what he has done to Shaq? Shaq was an environmentally-conscious player in Miami who never over-exerted himself. Now Nash has him running up and down the court like a maniac, diving into the stands, diving after loose balls, dribbling coast to coast. Can you imagine the massive amounts of carbon dioxide coming out of those massive lungs on Shaq? I think that “The Big Diesel” is indeed an appropriate name for Shaq because Nash has him spewing out just as much pollution as any diesel truck on the highway. I would like to see what the carbon footprint of that team looks like.” The foregoing “interview” is my poor attempt at satire in order to point out the utterly moronic extremes of the environmental extremists who are attempting to force their global-warming religion upon the world. The New Jersey Nets organization did indeed play a game last night against the Philadelphia 76ers (Philadelphia won, 108-99) which they promoted as the NBA's first “carbon-neutral game,” and they did allow environmental extremists to propagandize at the game. The Nets organization did partner with Barclays in the purchase of so-called “carbon emission credits” to offset the calculated energy costs of teams and fans traveling to and from the Izod Center and the energy consumed in the actual operation of the Izod Center. Ms. Waldron is a real representative of the Nets organization with the ambiguous title of “Activation Manager,” and she apparently does lead the moronic environmental efforts of the Nets, but the only quote attributed to her that is accurate is, “I believe that this will be our strategy for years to come. This is part of who we are.” Everything that she is purported to say after that is a complete fabrication by this writer. (Please allow me one quick digression: In my experience with large corporate environments, I have found that generally, women who hold ambiguous titles such as “Activation Manager” are hired for their looks and not for their brains or skill set. I have no idea what Ms. Waldron looks like, but I would be interested in hearing from any Nets fans or team personnel that would be able to either confirm or deny whether Ms. Waldron is the exception to that general rule.) The question that I have for the reader is this: While reading my foregoing fabricated interview, were you accepting of the idea that an NBA team would have their priorities so twisted that they would trade a star player in order to reduce their so-called “carbon footprint?” If so, then we must conclude that the global-warming religion has marginalized itself to a point where any kind of silly behavior on the part of that religion is seen as expected, if not accepted. One aspect of the behavior that the American public should steadfastly resist is this whole program of carbon offsets. The New Jersey Nets is a horrible team that puts a horrible product on the floor each night that it plays. And now we know why. Instead of honoring the hard-working, money-paying fan by focusing on doing the things that would build a good team, Bruce Ratner (principal owner of the Nets), Rod Thorn (president of the Nets), and company are focused on the latest scam that will net them billions in profits: the carbon emissions credits market. The Nets/76ers game last night was supposedly carbon-neutral because the Nets organization purchased carbon emissions credits to offset the carbon generated by the playing of the game. The Nets hired a company, Carbonneutral, which calculated the amount of carbon supposedly generated by the fans and teams at the game and then purchased carbon credits which supposedly finance carbon-reduction activities that will reduce carbon production in an amount equal to that generated by the game. The carbon offset program has been accurately referred to as a “morning-after pill” for the environment. One is allowed to happily and comfortably generate all of the carbon desired without any worries, because tomorrow one can just buy some more carbon credits to offset their profligate behavior. The New Jersey Nets' partner, Barclays, has become very rich in the trading of these carbon credits, and therein lies the scam. Making tremendous profits by supposedly protecting the environment is a scam that must cause your average confidence-man to weep at it's beauty and ingenuity.
There is no doubt that the Nets' partner, Barclays, sees their partnership as a means of scamming the American public in the same successful manner in which they have scammed the Europeans for years. Note the statement of Barclays' spokesman, Peter Truell, regarding trading of emissions credits, when he says, “We've been doing some small things here (in the U.S.), but we're not the big player we are in Europe.” So now we know that the agreement with Barclays for the naming rights to the Nets new arena in Brooklyn includes a wink and a nod from Ratner as Barclays pushes it's carbon emissions credit scam onto the unsuspecting Nets fans and by extension, the American public. Unfortunately for Nets fans, the Nets will continue to be a terrible team for many years to come. Ratner and company have proven that they are not interested in winning as much as they are interested in making a quick buck. Ticket purchases by Nets fans will fund the purchase of fraudulent carbon emission credits hundreds of times in the coming years, but they will not fund a championship team nor a point guard that can be mentioned in the same breath with Jason Kidd.
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Trackback(0)
Copyright 2007. All Rights Reserved.  |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed