World Cup: As The World Burns, There is a Solution

This article was co-authored by Rabbi Shammai Enngelmayer

The World Cup kicked off on June 11, and climatologists are warning that at least a quarter of its 104 matches may be played in temperatures of at least 90°F (33.2C), with humidity likely to make it feel even hotter. The National Weather Service (NWS) has been issuing advisories for parts of California, Oregon, and Washington, warning of “lethal” temperatures that could reach up to 110°F.

Climate change has brought record-breaking temperatures globally this century. In fact, all 26 years in this century have been among the 27 hottest years on record. With a strong El Niño likely to provide an extra boost, the NWS, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other authoritative agencies warn that 2026 could be the hottest year on record, a dubious distinction currently held by 2024.

That is why many climatologists and sports medicine practitioners predict this may be the most dangerous World Cup ever played and the last to be held in the early summer months. At least one expert, Elliot Arthur-Worsop, suggests that this will be the last time the games will be played in North America, at least in its current summer format.

Temperatures of 90+°F not only will interfere with how players perform on the field but will also prove dangerous to “the spectators and the officials,” says Arthur-Worsop, who heads Football For Future, a British-based nonprofit dedicated to “future-proofing” soccer.

We saw an inkling of this danger on opening day when 112 people suffered heat-related illnesses during a fan-centered World Cup event held in Houston.

The risk extends far beyond soccer, however. As Los Angeles Times sportswriter Kevin Baxter reported on June 6, “Some climatologists fear summer events like the World Cup and Olympic Games are just one heatwave away from a major weather-related tragedy.”

The oft-heard “solution” is to move the games closer to winter. The concerns about the World Cup, however, should be a wake-up call: It is long past time for us to deal with this major existential threat to humanity’s future.

Global warming is taking a huge toll. Seas are rising rapidly due to the melting of glaciers and polar ice caps. We have been seeing a significant increase in the frequency and severity of heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms, and floods.

Global peace is also at risk because a hotter and drier world could bring with it more acts of terrorism and wars. We see the potential several times in Genesis 13, 21, and 26, where serious disputes over wells are common. The Torah seems to recognize a truth that remains valid today: when a resource essential for life becomes scarce, tensions rise rapidly.

Rising seas pose a risk worldwide. in Israel a rising Mediterranean Sea could inundate the coastal plain that contains much of its population and infrastructure. In New York, experts have long been warning that Lower Manhattan—especially the Financial District and Wall Street—could be washed away if sea-levels continue to rise.

One place to start responding to this threat is with the food we eat.

The primary driver of climate change is animal-based agriculture. Cows emit methane, a very potent greenhouse gas. Over 40 percent of the world’s ice-free land is used for grazing and growing crops to feed animals. Over the course of human history, the number of trees on Earth has been reduced from an estimated six trillion to just three trillion. Their loss has played a major role in raising atmospheric CO₂ to very hazardous levels

It is essential that animal-based diets be sharply reduced to enable extensive reforestation. The increase in carbon-absorbing trees would reduce atmospheric CO₂ to a much safer level, increasing chances for a habitable, healthy, environmentally sustainable world for future generations.

We Jews should be especially concerned about the dangers climate change poses to Planet Earth because our Torah and the rabbinic texts that flow from it insist on it. They also insist on us taking an active role in addressing all manner of environmental and ecological concerns, including climate change, clean air, recycling, and many others.

Of course, the Torah itself is anywhere between 2,900 and 3,200 years old, and the rabbinic texts that make up the “Oral Law” are not much younger. Nevertheless, there is much to say that is relevant to us in the modern world. Most people who argue otherwise never read these texts, and those who have read them do not understand what they read.

Here is a case in point. The Torah, in its very second chapter, has God creating a “Garden of Eden” and giving the First Human a tour of all that is in it, because the human will have the responsibility “to till it and tend it. (Genesis 2:15).(The Torah never said that God created a “man” whose name was “Adam.” The Hebrew word “adam” means human, and this human was a fully formed hermaphrodite.)

To dismiss this story as anthropomorphic fiction, which so many do, is to miss the valuable lesson the Torah is teaching us. The Torah spends more space describing a garden than it does describing the creation of the universe. The garden is meant to represent the natural world and humanity’s relationship to that world. The Torah’s focus is on what it says happened there: this is humanity’s first encounter with freedom, responsibility, temptation, and consequence.

The Torah’s focus is elaborated on in a 1,700-year-old midrash. After the tour ends, God tells the First Human that it was all created for the benefit of humankind. But then, says God,  “Be careful not to ruin and destroy My world. If you do destroy it, there is no one to come after you to repair it.” (Midrash Kohelet Rabbah 7:13:1)

That 1,700-year-old anthropomorphic rabbinic teaching that is based on a 3,200-year-old Torah text is even more relevant today.

Deuteronomy 20:19 warns against deforestation. Trees that bear anything needed by all creatures great and small, and even the earth itself—in other words, virtually all trees—may not be cut down without a valid, legitimate purpose. From this single sentence, the Oral Law established a library-full of other laws far removed from a tree under the category known as bal tashchit, “Do Not Destroy.”

The Babylonian Talmud tractate Shabbat 67b applies this to wasting fuel of any kind. Maimonides, the Rambam, in his code of Jewish law, applies it to the deliberate destruction of such things as wearable clothing, any kind of vessel, and even an inhabitable structure. (Mishneh Torah, Kings and Their Wars 6:10)

In the 13th century, Rabbi Aharon HaLevi of Barcelona never heard of the word “recycling, but he was about 800 years ahead of its time promoting it. We may not even destroy a tiny mustard seed without a valid purpose because of bal tashchit, he said. It is “the way of the pious,” he added, to save whatever could be saved from being destroyed. (Sefer Ha-Chinuch No. 529.)

There are laws in the Torah and the Oral Law prohibiting air pollution, water pollution, and even noise pollution.

Clearly, our “ancient” Jewish texts have much to say about how all humans, and we Jews especially, have been mandated to protect this planet and everything in it.

That includes, by the way, protecting all creatures within whom there is a breath of life. The Torah considers all non-human lifeforms to have understanding, feelings, sensitivity to loss, and so on. From the Torah’s laws, the Oral Law built a library full of other laws under the rubric of Tza’ar Ba’alei Chayim, Giving Pain to Living Creatures.

That brings us back to our premise that the foods we eat can help heal our planet.

Humans were not originally intended to be meat-eaters. Genesis 1:29 is very clear on that point: “Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.’”

This message is driven home after the Great Flood, when God grudgingly grants humans limited and controlled permission to eat meat. Said God in Genesis 9:3, “Just as I did with the green grasses, now I give you every creature that lives; they shall be yours to eat.” God then proceeded to issue the first Tza’ar Baa’lei Chayim rules.

Think how much cooler our planet would be today if we had stuck with the originally intended diet. Think of how much lower the methane content would be today. Think how much lower atmospheric CO₂ levels would be.

Think about how much safer the athletes competing in the World Cup would be as temperatures inevitably continue to rise between now and July 19th.

And think how much healthier we all would be, especially if we adopted vegan diets, which are the best promoters of better health. That is because they focus on plant foods that nourish the body while reducing many of the risks associated with the consumption of animal products