A new voice has joined the chorus demanding action on climate change — one that will be familiar to any winter sports fans reading this.
Hockey legend Mike Richter says he worries that future generations of children won’t be able to skate on frozen ponds the way he did when he was young.
The Hall of Fame goalie, who led the New York Rangers to a Stanley Cup victory in 1994 and helped the U.S. Olympic team win a silver medal in Salt Lake City in 2002, just wrote an op ed about climate change that ran in the Buffalo News, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review and the Juneau Empire, among other papers.
In it, he says:
I wish we could turn back the clock. I want my boy’s generation to enjoy the same rich opportunities as I had. I worry for the future of the game that I love. I worry for the future of our economy, our national security and our planet.
Richter, who has spoken out about other environmental issues in the past, has also talked about climate change in radio interviews he did during this year’s Winter Olympics. You can hear some of his comments on Philadelphia’s WPEN radio.
Richter was also a guest speaker at a recent Business Advocacy Day, when 200 small business leaders from around the country came to Washington to lobby for a strong clean energy and climate bill. Check out this picture of Richter talking to the audience of business pioneers (and EDF staffers who worked on the event).
