Managing increasing demand for water, clean air, minerals, energy, and food is rapidly becoming one of our greatest challenges. What strategies are available to us? Are there alternatives to winners and losers? Stan Cox’s work on looks at these pressing topics through the lens of rationing in his recent piece published by the FAN Initiative.

The need for rationing has become clear in this hot summer of 2022, with military conflict and supply-chain disruption having driven energy supplies down even as extreme weather has driven energy demand, and therefore prices, to record heights. Governments in California, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere have launched campaigns aimed at limiting consumers’ use of air conditioning, appliances, and car charging. This has depended so far on calls for voluntary restraint, as a way of averting the need for involuntary restraint in the form of rolling electricity blackouts. Such exhortations can help get a society through a short-term mismatch of supply and demand, but to permanently reduce consumption, mandatory rationing with uniform limits is required to ensure sufficiency and fairness.

Stan Cox

Read the full essay by Stan Cox published by the FAN Initiative

More articles

Feb 28 2023

The Long View Vol 22

Since the Long View started as a newsletter almost 2 years ago, our aim has been to curate the highest quality polycrisis news, research, and analysis to support this...
Feb 28 2023

The Displacements

As 'The Displacements' slows down and sinks into the frustrations of life in a massive relief camp, the story recalls the Houston Astrodome after Katrina — except that...
Feb 21 2023

Whose polycrisis?

Unless the Polycrisis seriously questions the drivers of power and finds ways of challenging them, it risks becoming yet another neoliberal policy buzzword.
Aerial photo of a city traffic jam at night with bright red and white car lights
Feb 20 2023

Reflecting on the Polycrisis: From under the table whispers to public conversations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6NAtDt3xGo The Resilience Funders Network brings you a special conversation with Nate. Nathan J. (Nate) Hagens is a leading public...
Feb 16 2023

Is “Polycrisis” the right word for our times?

I’ve noticed a marked increase in the use of the term “polycrisis” over the last year, at least in US/Western media
Feb 15 2023

The Year of the Polycrisis

The term polycrisis is not and won’t be uncontested. Nor will its companion term, “resilience,” which we also use. Over time, both terms will be adopted as forms of...
Woman pushing dirty water through piles of trash
Feb 08 2023

So we’re in a polycrisis. Is that even a thing?

A lot of the folks trying to sound profound in the hallways at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week had just the word: “Polycrisis.” That’s what we’re in,...
Jan 26 2023

What the hell is a ‘polycrisis’, anyway?

A problem becomes a crisis when it challenges our ability to cope and thus threatens our identity.
Jan 26 2023

Sleepwalking on megathreat mountain

A host of interconnected “megathreats” is imperiling our future.
Jan 16 2023

THE COLLINS WORD OF THE YEAR 2022 IS…

Permacrisis: noun, an extended period of instability and insecurity