Reading club players will enter the new season in an innovative outfit with the aim of drawing attention to global warming.
According to Bloomberg Agency For news, the club, which competes in the English Premier League, decided to enter the field in its first home match of the season this weekend, with a new shirt to celebrate its 150th anniversary.
The club replaced the traditional emblem on the sleeves of its players’ shirts, in blue and white, with 150 red and blue stripes.
According to the team, “this change is not regarding aesthetics” as the new sleeves are a visualization of data on global warming known as “climate lines”.
These lines are referred to as “warming lines” or “climate lines”, which are time scales with lines symbolizing the evolution of temperatures.
They are data visualization graphics that use a series of colored bars arranged in chronological order to depict temperature trends.
As for the Reading Cufflinks, each strip represents a year, starting with the club’s founding in 1871.
Annual temperatures below average are shown in blue and above average in red, making the sleeves shift from cold blue to fiery red at the arm a warning of global warming.
“These stripes actually portray a time-lapse picture of climate change,” says Tim Kilpatrick, chief commercial officer at Reading. “The fonts are an easy-to-understand communication tool for people regarding emergencies.”
Climate lines, developed by University of Reading National Center for Atmospheric Sciences climatologist Ed Hawkins, in 2018 following seeing baby blankets, also used color coding to track global warming.
The continent of Europe in particular is known for high levels of high temperatures.
????⚪ Shirts, shorts and socks – all in the Fanstore! ???? #REACHER pic.twitter.com/snykLlibQH
— Reading FC (@ReadingFC) August 6, 2022
Since the beginning of summer, the temperature in countries such as the United Kingdom, France and Germany has reached extremes that Europeans have historically only known on a few occasions.
The increase in heat waves in Europe is a direct result of global warming. Greenhouse gas emissions add to the strength, duration and frequency of heat waves, according to the scientists.
As a result, several sporting and cultural events and celebrations were canceled.
The United States has also witnessed a series of disasters related to climate change, with the advent of summer, from devastating floods, fires, thunderstorms and heat waves that may be dangerous for a third of the population.
About 120 million Americans were affected to one degree or another by a heat wave that hit parts of the Midwest and Southeast.
