Britain starts fuel rationing, could US be next?

The plan calls for the government to issue an equal number of Tradable Energy Quotas to all British adults for free and to auction credits off to businesses and government agencies. The goal of TEQs would be to encourage conservation and to deal with any future energy shortages in a way that’s more fair than letting high prices determine who buys energy and who doesn’t.

Scary, but less than the alternative

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil, which put out the plan, explains how the system would work: “When you buy energy, such as petrol for your car or electricity for your household, units corresponding to the amount of energy you have bought are deducted from your TEQs account, in addition to your money payment. TEQs transactions are automatic, using credit-card or (more usually) direct-debit technology.”

When fuel costs rise, high prices serve as an unofficial form of rationing, as lower-income people start to cut back. But price rationing is inherently unfair, as it favors the rich, who can still consume energy wastefully even if prices are higher.

With oil trading near $100 per barrel in London and Britain’s Fuel Poverty fund stretched to heat low-income households this winter, the TEQ proposal comes at a tough time for energy in the UK. While the report recommends implementing the fuel rationing system sometime in the next ten years, if fuel costs continue to rise then it’s likely that the government would have to consider some form of energy rationing sooner.

Sound crazy? Yet 80% by 2035 sounds rational?

Britain has pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 32% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 from 1990 levels. Though it is unlikely to meet its near-term pledges, the UK will need something like TEQs to have any chance of making real cuts to its greenhouse emissions.

And cutting emissions even more will require a society-wide effort that gets the public more deeply involved. TEQs could be just the thing to pull citizens in as climate fighters — either for or against.

Using Power to Command & Control Masses

In its analysis, the parliamentary group demonstrates a analysis of behavior:

Behavioral studies have consistently shown that intrinsic motivation (that is, desiring the actual consequences of undertaking a task) drives us more effectively than extrinsic motivation (being rewarded for doing something, or penalised for not doing it). For Daniel Pink’s entertaining presentations on this research see his TED talk or RSA animation. The important Common Cause report (Sept 2010) considered motivation with regard to environmental issues in particular, and reinforced this conclusion. But this understanding has largely failed to penetrate climate policy, which is generally based on classic ‘carrot and stick’ ideas about motivation.

When the British last used rationing from 1940 to 1954, the program had a profound affect on the public, and “is largely remembered not as a time of deprivation but of plucky courage, solidarity and fortitude in the face of a dangerous adversary,” according to TIME magazine.

WTF? Hansen asks China to bend U.S. over a barrel?

The US may not be capable anymore of taking intelligent action to control our own energy use and greenhouse emissions, James Hansen called for China to take the lead on a global carbon-pricing system that would force the United States to either join in or face trade restrictions…

Read more of this scary article if you can stomach it