The Elephant In the Room: Addressing Climate Change Means Rationing

World War II rationing posters. If no one questions the goal, no one will question means like these.

by Thomas Neuburger

I could make this complicated or simple. Let's make it simple. We've dithered so long in addressing climate change, that to address it effectively means not just a radical restructuring of the entire economy, it also means energy rationing.

A few writers are starting to get this fact, and get at it in their work. Some "rationing will be needed" articles are of the "let me prove it to you with data" type. I'd like to take a different approach in this piece. This will be an "if you've got a massive water leak, you're going to get wet" type of piece — an appeal to the obvious, in other words. Either approach will have the same result — it will arrive at the r-word despite (and because) of the reaction that word causes.

After all, it's entirely likely that one of the chief reasons people are not addressing climate change effectively — aside from the political and propaganda power of corporate America — is that once people start thinking about the problem, they quickly conclude what we're about to conclude, that a crash conversion to zero-carbon energy means "goodbye big-screen lifestyle," at least for a while.

Let's look at something written in 2016 by Stan Cox, "If There’s a World War II-Style Climate Mobilization, It has to Go All the Way—and Then Some." His intro, which I won't quote, states the obvious: that the climate is deteriorating at an accelerating pace, and addressing this problem will take a "World War II"-style mobilization.

This is true as far as it goes, but the UN and most climate scientists also say that the rate of decarbonization required is greater than can be achieved with just a simple (and comfortably paced) retrofit of the energy economy.

Consider this contradiction, from the Greenpeace info sheet on the latest IPCC Special Report (quoted here: "IPCC Releases Climate Report — First Thoughts").

• With countries’ current climate targets we are heading for well above 3°C.
• To get below 1.5°C global CO2 emissions would need to be halved by 2030 and reach net zero by mid-century at the latest, with substantial reductions in other gases.

According to Dr. Michael Mann and others, our business-as-usual behavior will push global atmospheric warming beyond +2 degrees Celsius in the mid 2030s (my own estimate is much more pessimistic), while UN Paris agreement "promises," or targets, have global carbon emissions rising throughout that period.

As a result, the IPCC Special Report calls for global carbon emissions to, in effect, "fall off a cliff" — end, or at least start to end, almost immediately. This, of course, means ending the fossil fuel industry completely and forever.

But let's forget about the unlikelihood of that happening. Let's say we actually tried to do this — that in 2021 a radical, FDR-style president and an awakened and, yes, panicked public committed to an actual crash conversion to 100% renewable energy. What would that mean for the consumer economy? Would that big screen, smart phone lifestyle, the one the energy industry ads say is at risk, actually be at risk?

This is where the answer gets obvious. Of course it will be at risk. If protecting people's ability to spend endlessly on consumer products is society's highest priority, then a crash-course energy conversion will be slowed to whatever speed it must be. But if averting the global climate crisis is the highest priority, of course the consumer economy will take a back seat, to whatever extent it must.

Which is exactly what occurred during World War II.

Stan Cox on what that implies:

The necessity for the consumer economy to get by on a lower input of energy and other resources while achieving sufficiency for all brings us back to the World War II model. If we’re to emulate the “Greatest Generation,” we can’t do a halfway job of it, focusing solely on “green” production; we have to build a fairer economy as well.

So far, I have seen only one effective strategy for doing that: a “Victory Plan” recently drawn up by Ezra Silk, a co-founder of The Climate Mobilization movement. (It can be downloaded here.) The document, radical and at the same time realistic and practical, calls for reworking the government and economy even more thoroughly than during World War II, in order to cut America’s net greenhouse emissions down to zero by 2025 while also reversing degradation of ecosystems and halting the mass extinction of species.

Necessary steps will include phasing out fossil-fuel use within a decade; directing a large share of our energy, materials, and labor toward building a renewable energy sector and a high speed rail network; restoring our forests, grasslands, and croplands so that we are putting more carbon into the soil and less into the atmosphere; deeply cutting meat and dairy consumption; and converting a large portion of the U.S. military into a kind of climate mobilization force.

All of that will require a national reallocation of resources among sectors of production, one that diverts a significant share of a necessarily declining resource budget into building green infrastructure and leaves the consumer economy a lot less to work with.

And the kicker (emphasis added):

We know from wartime experience that with resources diverted away from the consumer economy, shrinking supply will collide with still-high demand, bringing the threat of runaway inflation. Price controls will be essential, but with goods in short supply at reasonable prices, we will have to move quickly to prevent severe shortages, hoarding, and “rationing by queueing.” As in the 1940s, that will require fair-shares rationing.

I'll let you read the article to see the implications of that last sentence.

The bottom line, of course, is that these are indeed the options — comfort for us now, followed by death and misery for all generations to come. Or rationing and planning now, to secure a safer future for our children and grandchildren. This is the choice this generation is facing, and I firmly believe, in the back of their minds, people do know.

This is a profound moment in human history. What we face today is not just a practical, existential choice, but a deeply moral, almost Dantesque one as well. We're on the verge of committing mass murder, this generation. And for what?