Ration books for everyone: Part 1

Artificial scarcity and rationing as a way to net zero

Note: the paper that this post discusses made a splash about two weeks ago but, as it happens with all splashes, the media waters quickly stilled. Because I strongly believe that some things need to be talked about continuously rather than having a burst of outrage and then forgetting about the thing that outraged us, I’ve delayed publication to this week. And yes, there’s a second part, too.

A couple of years ago, when the initial burst of fear amid the Covid pandemic began to subside, one fact provided a much needed spirit-lift: because of the mass lockdowns global emissions went down sharply.

Some people were so overjoyed by this fact (an event that takes place regardless of anyone’s opinion or interpretation of it) that they suggested we might begin to lock down voluntarily from time to time to keep our emissions in check.

If that idea had been floated ironically by someone sceptic about the role of carbon dioxide emissions in climate changes around the globe, this would have been slammed as another conspiracy theory. Yet it came from people who were the opposite of sceptic about the role of carbon dioxide emissions in climate changes around the globe. It was a good idea.

Fast forward another year and we saw the European Union sombrely calling on people to cut their energy consumption so we can get through the winter. Said winter turned out to be much warmer than usual but energy consumption did go down, considerably, because of energy prices.

Sadly, one can’t rely on prices staying high forever on their own, so additional tools needed to be applied in order to keep energy consumption lower in line with ambitions to limit the allegedly inexorable rise in average global temperatures commonly called climate change. If only there was something else we could do…

Luckily for all of us, scientists are restless folk, always looking for solutions to the many problems facing humanity at this critical juncture of our existence as a species (I’ve always wanted to use the phrase “critical juncture”, I don’t mind saying). And now, a group of them has found one brilliant solution. Wartime-style rationing.

The central idea of the authors is a brilliantly simple one: create resource scarcity in order to justify rationing. In other words, because people will not willingly cut their consumption of everything, let’s mimic wartime scarcity so they can’t argue with rationing.

Here’s one way to do it.

“The sale of fossil fuels could be restricted such that companies could only sell certain amounts, for certain purposes and, for countries which rely heavily on the importing of fossil fuels, imports of fossil fuels could be banned or restricted.”

Well, I guess that’ll be farewell to Japan, South Korea, India, and China to begin with, and then the same for everyone except the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Norway, for a while. It is quick and efficient as long as one can find a suicidal enough government to do it. But that’s only the first step.

The second is the rationing itself. Per the authors,

“While regulation created the scarcity, rationing would manage the scarcity – and, as we have argued, rationing has proved its effectiveness in managing scarcity. On this approach, rationing would be similar to World War II rationing in that rationing would again be a direct response to a clear and immediate scarcity of resources.”

Here’s an example of how the scarcity tsars in government could enforce this management:

“For example governments could limit the number of long-haul flights an individual could make in a year or they could limit the amount of petrol one can buy in a month.”

Cute, right? And egalitarian, which appears to be a particularly important word for the authors.

What’s even cuter, however, is that the proposal also acknowledges that rationing would need to be combined with — wait for it — price-fixing to avoid everything becoming absolutely unaffordable for 99% of the people. Price-fixing may never have worked before. It may have had disastrous consequences every single time it’s been used but this time it will be different because we will do it properly.

Even so, the authors appear to be of a generous nature. They do not want to prescribe one proper way of rationing. No, they’re open to variations:

“We have no objection to the modernization of rationing with carbon cards (like bank cards) to keep track of your carbon allowance rather than ration cards. We also have no fundamental opposition to a more generalized carbon allowance applying to all (or a large range of) goods, rather than individualized rations for specific goods.”

The important thing is, according to the authors, to make sure rationing hurts the rich and the poor equally. The point is to eliminate any possibility for trade with emission allowances — the basis for all the other product rationing experiments in recent history — so the poor are not, as always, at a disadvantage.

Egalitarian is good, who could argue with that, right? Especially since the rationing will have to be permanent, even though the authors allow for the possibility of a temporary rationing scheme as we “adapt and develop new technology” of unspecified nature.

Most of all, however, the authors cite historical evidence from the two world wars as suggesting people would welcome rationing as long as it was fair, i.e. as long as everyone suffered. That’s human nature for you.

But there’s also another aspect of human nature that does not seem to have garnered so much attention in the paper although it is noted repeatedly: rationing would mean sacrificing our current way of life. Almost nobody would make that sacrifice easily.

Sure, there are suggestions for more awareness-raising about climate change and how we need to act quickly to slow it down but it won’t be enough. All that government regulation to create the artificial scarcity won’t be enough. It may be easier to just have a World War 3 to justify the rationing. Oh, wait…

I leave you with my absolutely favourite quote:

“We should also challenge the (implicit) assumption that we must work with public opinion as it is. Many people opposed the abolition of slavery, votes for women, civil rights and racial equality. But these policies were right and fair, so people argued and fought for them.”