Physical exercise has been shown to have positive effects on the ability to concentrate in young and old. While children attend school, it is all the more important for learning issues, but also for physical and mental health.
Prevention is better than cure, goes the popular saying. This is why it is imperative to promote physical activity as much as possible from an early age to develop healthy lifestyle habits. However, we have become accustomed to organizing every square centimeter of our public parks for very specific and defined sports or activities.
I told you about it last week, we like to supervise the lives of our children, and especially when it comes time to practice sports and hobbies. Pressure on local governments to develop soccer, baseball and football fields is constant. Local organizations compete for every patch of turf to ensure their league’s viability and allow for more practice hours.
However, some sports, such as soccer, have greater negative impacts than others on maintaining the quality of the playing surface. Result: it is less easy to play on hard and dry ground or still very muddy after a good downpour. We found a great solution to this obstacle, the installation of synthetic surface.
However, the impact of these artificial grounds on human health and biodiversity is rarely considered. I don’t want to be a party pooper, but installing these surfaces is not without consequences. For good reason, the raw material that composes them: petroleum and recycled rubber.
Recently, I spoke to you about the urban heat island (UHI). I mentioned the increased toxicity of fine smog particles when you are in such an area. It turns out that a synthetic sports field is a phenomenal source of ICU.
On the open data site of the City of Montreal, we have access to thermal recordings of surfaces made in 2021 everywhere on the island when it was 28 ° C. For example, on Boulevard Rosemont, the temperature is between 39°C and 44°C. On that of a synthetic soccer field in Père-Marquette Park just next door, it is 51°C to 56°C. You read that right, almost twice the normal temperature.
Imagine the tenfold harmful impact of fine particles that end up in the lungs of players and bystanders. Trees can still be planted around the pitch to create shade in 10 or 20 years, but the temperature of the synthetic surface will not change significantly. I spare you the whole question of the GHGs produced by the industrial production of these surfaces and the repercussions on biodiversity when the rain transports the particles of degraded matter into the soil.
All this because we absolutely want to allow the practice of sport on impeccable surfaces. The same thing is done in many children’s playgrounds. Because a dry, hard or muddy ground can cause injuries and it reduces the conditions for practicing the sport. Certainly, it is more optimal to play on a good quality surface, but it seems to me that you can also learn and improve when it is more difficult.
Again, local governments can play a key role in changing mindsets. By promoting more natural playgrounds, we can both focus on more sustainable techniques for the development of our green spaces and reduce the expectations of clubs and parents with regard to the quality of the playing surface.
By changing our traditional decision-making models that have led us to the climate precipice, we are inducing lasting changes that will help us tomorrow. Consistency is also a necessity. On the one hand, we cannot want to do everything possible to fight against the climate crisis and voluntarily install surfaces that contribute to the climate crisis.
We could also develop our parks with less organization around specific sports that benefit a minority of people. You imagine all these spaces monopolized for a few hours of sports practice. Consideration should be given to more multifunctional natural spaces so that more people can benefit from these public facilities. A bit of free play and improvisation won’t hurt anyone, on the contrary.
This brings us back to the fundamental question, that of our inability to manage the risk of injury to our offspring. Our propensity to plan our children’s games without any risk reflects the mirror of our inability to implement an inclusive ecological transition that will involve living with risks.
Wouldn’t it be helpful if we started to get used to the risk of letting our kids kick the ass? That would be a good start!
CEO of the Institute for Urban Resilience and Innovation, professor and associate researcher, François William Croteau was mayor of Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie.