There's Only One Reason Sports Are Thriving In This Economy: Denial

Matt Miselis has recently written a humorous Bleacher Report piece titled, "There's a Depression? 20 Reasons Why Sports Survive This Economy" (http://tinyurl.com/da69n9).

Mr. Miselis explores a telling cultural phenomenon, a dynamic akin to a canary in a coal mine. His comforting observations should give us pause and if I may be permitted to approach the same issue from a realistic perspective, I submit that people are turning to screens and flocking to venues to consume the distracting spectacle of commodified sporting events because the cold, harsh and indifferent reality of the end of our unsustainable-by-definition way-of-life is too difficult to comprehend and too much to bear.

I recommend, for a short while at least, abandoning the television and hydrocarbon-based flocking in favor of introspection, research, enlightenment and adaptation.

Peruse and digest the following information and then try to imagine how the 20 Reasons might play out in the not-too-distant future (hint: the old future is dead):

Article: World faces 'perfect storm' of problems by 2030

Source: The Guardian (3/18/2009)

Link: http://tinyurl.com/chkf6k

Quote: "A 'perfect storm' of food shortages, scarce water and insufficient energy resources threaten to unleash public unrest, cross-border conflicts and mass migration as people flee from the worst-affected regions, the UK government's chief scientist will warn tomorrow."

Article: The Inflection Is Near?

Source: The New York Times (3/7/2009)

Link: http://tinyurl.com/amb83s

Quote: " 'We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children,' [Joe Romm, physicist and climate expert] ... 'Just as a few lonely economists warned us we were living beyond our financial means and overdrawing our financial assets, scientists are warning us that we’re living beyond our ecological means and overdrawing our natural assets,' argues Glenn Prickett, senior vice president at Conservation International. But, he cautioned, as environmentalists have pointed out: 'Mother Nature doesn’t do bailouts.' "

Interview: with Geologists Howard G. Wilshire and Jane E. Nielson

Source: The San Fransisco Bay Guardian (1/7/2009)

Link: http://tinyurl.com/8rl745

Quote: "HGW: [T]he total resource depletion picture of the world is that we’ve got to change our ways, we can’t just find something that’s cheap and easy and go on doing what we’re doing.

JEN: Because there isn’t anything.

SFBG: That technological fix doesn’t exist?

JEN: That technological fix doesn’t exist. We have to realize that we have to adapt to limitations.

SFBG: So it’s more of a cultural fix?

JEN: Definitely."

Important Note: At one point in the interview, Jane Nielson says, "For example, it’s probably no coincidence that the US went off the gold standard in the same stretch of years that the US reached its peak production of petroleum and really began to be unable to expand its gold supply. So that produced a constraint on how much more wealth could be created. So we went on to a different footing for our currency and that has lead to where we are now, by means that I won’t go into."

I highly recommend going into it by reading the next, and final for the purposes of this post, article by reality-based economist, Herman Daly (former Senior Economist for the World Bank)

Article: The Disconnection Between Financial Assets and Real Assets

Source: The Oil Drum (12/25/2008)

Link: http://tinyurl.com/7d675q

Quote: "Can the economy grow fast enough in real terms to redeem the massive increase in debt? In a word, no. As Frederick Soddy (1926 Nobel Laureate chemist and underground economist) pointed out long ago, 'you cannot permanently pit an absurd human convention, such as the spontaneous increment of debt [compound interest] against the natural law of the spontaneous decrement of wealth [entropy]'. The population of 'negative pigs' (debt) can grow without limit since it is merely a number; the population of 'positive pigs' (real wealth) faces severe physical constraints. The dawning realization that Soddy’s common sense was right, even though no one publicly admits it, is what underlies the crisis. The problem is not too little liquidity, but too many negative pigs growing too fast relative to the limited number of positive pigs whose growth is constrained by their digestive tracts, their gestation period, and places to put pigpens. Also there are too many two‐legged Wall Street pigs, but that is another matter."

If you're serious about understanding, accepting and engaging reality—and then applying macro-reality to the micro-fantasy of the spectacle of modern sports—absorbing the above 4 referenced resources is an excellent place to start.

So revel in the 20 or get real in the one but remember these two: Deal with reality or reality will deal with you, and nature bats last.