Peak Oil’s Impact: Baseball

Oil plays an essential role in almost everything that touches our everyday lives. From the food we eat to the means by which we transport ourselves, our goods, and our services, to what we grow, build, have, own, need, and do, oil is almost always an important element. But the painful truth now and soon is that the ready supply of oil and gas that we almost always take for granted is on its way to becoming not-so-ready—recent production increases notwithstanding.

What happens when there’s not enough to meet all of our demands, to say nothing of those of every other nation—including the many countries seeking more growth and prosperity? What sacrifices will we be called upon to make? Which products will no longer be as readily available? Which services? Who decides? What will be decided? Who delivers that message to the designers and producers and shippers and end users? What’s their Plan B? And how will we respond when decisions are taken out of our hands? Where exactly will the dominoes tumble?

There is nothing on the horizon that will work as an adequate substitute for the efficiencies and low cost and ease of accessibility that oil has provided us. We simply do not have the means to make that happen—not the technological capabilities, not the personnel, not the industries, not the leadership … yet. Clearly, we do not have enough time to do it all with effortless ease and minimal disruptions.

Piecemeal approaches that address some small aspect of need for some short period of time in some limited geographical area for just a few consumers is in the end a monumental waste of limited resources, time, and effort. We can’t wait until we’re up to our eyeballs in Peak Oil’s impact to start figuring out what to do. We’re too close as it is. We’re going to have to be much better, much wiser, and much more focused. **

Here’s the latest contribution to my Peak Oil’s Impact series—observations and commentary on how Peak Oil’s influence will be felt in little, never-give-it-thought, day-to-day aspects of the conventional crude oil-based Life As We’ve Known It. Changes in all that we do, use, own, make, transport, etc., etc., are inevitable. A little food for thought….

With baseball season upon us, I thought it might make sense to dust off and borrow portions of the very first Impact post I wrote nearly three years ago. Edited for clarity, updated just a bit, and restricted to portions relevant to baseball, here it is:

It’s easy enough to mention the fact that balls, and helmets, and cleats are all made with crude oil as an essential component—either in the product itself or used to create/deliver/transport some materials before and after manufacturing is completed. It’s also safe to assume that once we begin dealing with curtailed availability of fossil fuels, some needs will have lower priority than others. Ambulances will probably have access to fossil fuel-based crude oil (gasoline) before manufacturers get the supplies and equipment they need. Obviously there will be ripple effects across the industry when this happens, and the end users (from the junior leaguers and the neighborhood kids all the way up to the professionals) will also have some problems to contend with: either the products will become less available, or they will become prohibitively expensive for many along the chain of users. What happens?

What happens when high school sports programs with limited funds as it is have to replace cleats and helmets and other accessories and their prices have doubled, or tripled, or the helmets and cleats are simply not being manufactured any longer on a scale sufficient enough to meet demand? What happens then?

Let’s also take a broader view. How do teams (high school, college, the pros) deal with travel issues and schedules when gas is much too expensive to enable teams to transport their players even short distances, or when air travel is severely curtailed and wildly expensive because not enough jet fuel is being processed to meet demand (and airports are shuttered because air travel has diminished markedly*), or when the fans cannot afford to put the gasoline in their vehicles that in the past allowed them to attend the games without a second thought?

What happens when half, or a third, or one-tenth the number of fans can afford to attend games because budgeting all that money to drive to an in- or out-of-state stadium no longer makes financial sense? Pure supply and demand: when demand continues and supply is reduced, prices go up. Decisions are then made about where to allocate funds. Does a trip across the state to attend a Red Sox game make more sense than paying for your children’s basic needs for the next few months?

Where will the revenue to pay players come from when the majority of fans are no longer traveling to see the games either because limited gas supplies are now being allocated or it’s simply become too expensive for “frivolous” trips? How do owners continue to fund their vast operations (office staff, marketing, scouting staffs, minor leagues, utility services for the stadiums and training facilities, and on and on it goes)? What happens to the vendors and other suppliers when the majority of fans just stop attending … permanently?

For all their current revenue, what happens to the Red Sox or Yankees when they are scheduled to travel to Tampa Bay, or Texas, or to the West Coast, and it costs a small fortune in fuel costs alone for charter planes? What rail services currently exist that offer a practical alternative? Exactly how far out does the ripple effect extend?

No organization, no group of individuals no matter what their financial status, and no industry that currently utilizes fossil fuels to any extent will escape the effects of Peak Oil. For all the magic and excitement and joy of athletic events, sports will suffer the impact of Peak Oil every bit as much (if not more) than many or most other industries.

What happens then?

Peak Oil Matters