With hurricanes and floods, melting ice caps and coral bleaching hitting the headlines on a daily basis, the evidence of the climate crisis is clear. If we don’t want these devastating phenomena to worsen, immediate action is required on a global scale.
That’s why doctoral researcher Oskar Lindgren, from the Climate Change Leadership Group at Uppsala University, Sweden, recently conducted a survey to determine the lengths to which people would be willing to go to protect the planet.
The results were, in many ways, quite unexpected.
In his study, which was recently published in the academic journal Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Lindgren surveyed 9,000 people from Brazil, India, Germany, South Africa. The questions they answered determined their opinions on the rationing and taxation of fuel and meat.
Global meat consumption and the use of fuel are among the most serious and significant contributors to climate change. And the great news is that these are both something that we can easily do something about.
Lindgren posed questions about both rationing and taxation – two highly controversial initiatives – to the public to try to understand the level of sacrifice that people would be willing to make to save our planet.
Understanding of the acceptability of such measures is crucial, since the public must perceive such strategies as worthwhile if they are to comply.
Most commonly associated with wartime, rationing meat or fuel would allow each person a certain allocation of these emission-heavy goods. With major conflict as the only real precedent for this tactic, the survey would evidence whether or not people thought that the climate crisis was serious enough to go without their unlimited supply of meat and fuel.
The equality afforded by this strategy may, however, lead to its success, as Lindgren explained in a statement:
“Rationing may seem dramatic, but so is climate change. This may explain why support is rather high. One advantage of rationing is that it can be perceived as fair, if made independent of income. Policies perceived as fair often enjoy higher levels of acceptance.”
In the case of meat, however, many respondents seem to be rather reliant on their animal-based diet and reluctant to have a monthly cap imposed. While 33% of respondents would support meat rationing, a higher 44% of people would welcome taxation of their meat products.
When it comes to fuel, though, the difference between taxation and rationing was much more similar. It is worth noting that fuel is already taxed to some extent around the world, while meat is often subsidised by governments. In total, 38% of people were in favor of rationing fuel, with 39% in support of taxation of the fossil fuels that power their cars and generators.
In the statement, Mikael Karlsson – Senior Lecturer in Climate Leadership at Uppsala University – noted his surprise at the results:
“Most surprisingly, there is hardly any difference in acceptability between rationing and taxation of fossil fuels. We expected rationing to be perceived more negatively because it directly limits people’s consumption. But in Germany, the proportion of people who strongly oppose fossil fuel taxes is actually higher than the proportion who strongly oppose fossil fuel rationing.”
There are, unsurprisingly, significant differences in the attitudes of people from different countries, age groups, and education levels.
The study clearly shows that younger, more educated, and climate-conscious respondents were strongly in favor of rationing and taxation, while older or less educated respondents were less likely to support the initiatives.
While Indian and South African respondents were more likely to support rationing, Germans and Americans were more likely to be opposed to such measures.
While these strategies aren’t on the table yet, they certainly give food for thought. If the result is saving our planet, surely meat and fuel rationing is an acceptable price to pay.
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