Rose Parade’s ‘green’ move is a baby step

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Back in September, the Tournament of Roses proudly announced American Honda Motor Co. was going to be its first-ever presenting sponsor, ‘employing Honda’s innovative environmental technologies to help the Rose Parade function more efficiently and reduce its carbon footprint.’

Which raised the question: What is the carbon footprint of the extravaganza?

It turns out no one knows, and the organizers aren’t too eager to find out or make the moves toward zeroing its emissions impact that have been made by major event sponsors such as the NFL, the Olympics, and the Democratic and Republican conventions.

Consider: Every float other than Honda’s is powered by a V-8 engine, and in total they’ll burn more than 800 gallons of gasoline by the time they roll through the parade. That doesn’t count the 80 auxiliary trucks, 145 fleet cars and dozens of police vehicles.

And the flowers? Many hail from as far away as Colombia and Africa. California growers, in fact, say they’ve been phased out of the festivities for years, in favor of cheaper blossoms flown to Miami and trucked 4,000 miles to Pasadena.

Read more here: Rose Parade moving at a crawl toward being green

-- Geoff Mohan