The Climate Case for Rationing

New Republic ^ | March 3, 2023 | by Kate Aronoff

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Rationing today is seen as a sign that things have gone very wrong. In HBO’s The Last of Us—where humanity has been decimated by a fungal infection that turns people into violent meat sacs—quarantine zone residents swap ration cards for shoelaces and trade them on the black market for drugs. In the real world, meanwhile, produce is being rationed in the UK amid a whopping 17 percent rise in grocery prices, seen by many as a failure of government planning.

But rationing, when needed, hasn’t always gotten such a bad rap. Sometimes people have even supported it, even after largely declining to reduce their consumption of key goods voluntarily.

Now a new paper proposes rationing as one policy option to deal with another less-than-ideal situation: the climate crisis. Authors Nathan Wood, Rob Lawlor, and Josie Freear don’t lay out a plan for carbon rationing or even make the case that governments should do such a thing. They argue, rather, that it can be “considered as a policy that would be implemented as part of a broader pluralistic response to climate change.” They see rationing as likely a question of how—not if.

Price controls are an essential complement to rationing so as to “keep key resources affordable for the majority of people, including the poor.” Traditionally rationing systems have meant goods are bought with both ration cards and cash, creating a dual currency system. Price controls help insulate the remaining money economy from the haywire laws of supply and demand. Together, rationing and price controls, the authors explain, “give you an option you simply will not have under other policies: the option to buy goods at a price which is not determined by the market, and which is significantly cheaper than it would be if left to the market.”

[BobL]

“Aren’t they made in DFW? He’s protecting his political base.”

LOL. Here’s the problem with Western fighters in Ukraine:

Even US pilots have to run like hell when an S-400 paints them. Ukraine pilots will likely just eject. Try selling more of those planes abroad when that is happening. If Cruz had a brain he would understand that.

[The Great RJ]

It’s all about control. If you don’t tow the line on whatever the government says no soup for you. Imagine having to get a government permit to travel anywhere, the government controlling your thermostat and rationing your healthcare. Too old too sick it’s euthanasia for you comrade.