Controlling Consumption

A matter of necessity?

During WWII our governments had to introduce rationing to ensure an adequate supply of essentials for the war effort. Butter was rationed, so were sugar and meat, gasoline of course and rubber tires. Women learned to do without nylons. It was all for a good cause.

We may be returning to rationing within a decade, two at the outside. Our governments won't be rationing to safeguard supply but to restrict consumption because, ultimately, that is the only fair way to share the pain of arresting the pace of global warming on an individual level.

One of the first targets is bound to be air travel. Commercial air travel is a big carbon generator, not to mention the damage it causes to the ozone layer. The world has become addicted to cheap and frequent air travel. Today, few think twice of flying from Vancouver to Toronto or from Montreal to Europe.

Britain is leading the effort to curb global warming and, so far, it's been doing better than most. Yet air travel threatens to completely undermine the government's committments, as shown in this item from the Independent:

"But the picture can be expressed in an even more alarming way. According to the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, if by mid-century Britain cuts its total carbon emissions by 60 per cent, as the Government wishes, but aviation does not scale back its own emissions, flying will then be taking up all the emissions that are available. That is, everything else - business, power generation, home heating - will have to go to zero, to allow flying to continue."

What to do? Governments can curtail air travel by taxes that make it too expensive for all but the rich or they can allocate air travel in some form of rationing. It's hard to imagine what other choices are open.

Governments will also have to introduce measures to control supply of fuel, energy and even the supply and distribution of imported foods. The challenges we're going to have to confront will require an expansive and courageous debate that will, inevitably, touch on issues such as wealth distribution and entitlement. It's going to happen, we might as well start discussing it now while we have the luxury of crafting solutions that best suit our society.