[MCN] The Globe and Mail (Toronto) The climate crisis is like a world war. So let’s talk about rationing

[Lance Olsen]

The Globe and Mail (Toronto)                                  December 14, 2019

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-climate-crisis-is-like-a-world-war-so-lets-talk-about-rationing/ <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-climate-crisis-is-like-a-world-war-so-lets-talk-about-rationing/>
The climate crisis is like a world war. So let’s talk about rationing
EXCERPTS

RATIONING SOUNDS AWFUL

I know, I know, it sounds awful – even shocking given our expectations. Rationing is for populations at war. But given the terrible consequences of climate change, we are in a war to save ourselves.

“The climate crisis is our third world war,” writes Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. “It needs a bold response."

According to writer and activist Bill McKibben, “it’s not that global warming is like a world war. It is a world war. And we are losing.”

The dramatic Green New Deal proposed by some Americans calls for a wartime-like retooling of our economies and our lives. We need to immediately put the brakes on consumption, with everyone sharing the burden. 

‘FAIR SHARES FOR ALL’

Fairness is what rationing is all about. That’s why so many citizens approved of it during the Second World War. Polls in Canada in 1945 showed that more than 90 per cent of adults felt that rationing had done a good or fair job during the conflict in distributing food equitably, Ian Mosby writes in his 2014 book, Food Will Win the War. Even in Britain, where wartime rationing was more extensive, opinion polls showed that most citizens agreed with government policies aiming to ensure “Fair Shares for All.”

Wartime food programs have intrigued me for a decade.

I’d been writing about how we can eat more sustainably by lowering our meat and dairy intake. Then, my husband and I were in London and discovered the Imperial War Museum and its exhibit The Ministry of Food. There we learned of Britain’s food-system overhaul in the 1930s and forties to keep its citizens fed through chaotic times. Because war can wreck normal infrastructures, including those for food production and distribution, the British government assessed the country’s food network, refocused agriculture toward domestic needs and set clear objectives for every citizen to grow locally, minimize food waste and abide by the ration so everyone would have enough.

If you’re thinking that slice of history isn’t relevant because people don’t want government to be involved in food, it’s too late. Elected officials and their administrations already oversee agriculture, food safety, dietary guidelines and more. Besides, we in Canada want the government to act in key sectors such as transportation, education and health.

Given that food is even more essential than those, because we need to eat to survive, and given that climate change is threatening global food production, we need public leadership. We need visionaries with the foresight of British wartime leader Winston Churchill to inform and inspire us and require that we act.

END EXCERPTS https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-climate-crisis-is-like-a-world-war-so-lets-talk-about-rationing/ <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-climate-crisis-is-like-a-world-war-so-lets-talk-about-rationing/>

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“Research suggests that the scale of human population and the current pace of its growth contribute substantially to the loss of biological diversity. Although technological change and unequal consumption inextricably mingle with demographic impacts on the environment, the needs of all human beings—especially for food—imply that projected population growth will undermine protection of the natural world. 

"Numerous solutions have been proposed to boost food production while protecting biodiversity, but alone these proposals are unlikely to staunch biodiversity loss. An important approach to sustaining biodiversity and human well-being is through actions that can slow and eventually reverse population growth: investing in universal access to reproductive health services and contraceptive technologies, advancing women’s education, and achieving gender equality.”
 
Eileen Crist, Camilo Mora, Robert Engelman. The interaction of human population, food production, and biodiversity protection. Science 21 April 2017

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