To a point, but there are payment plans for people who can't make their utility bills, there are charities and soup kitchens for people who are food insecure.

To a point, but there are payment plans for people who can't make their utility bills, there are charities and soup kitchens for people who are food insecure. Also welfare and food stamps. It's not a perfect system by far but there's at least some semblance of a safety net. Also the government doesn't directly dictate how much you eat or the precise temperature of your house. If you run out of resources, the government gives you a minimum. You still have the freedom to acquire more resources if you're able, in fact it's generally expected that you try. What these proposals are talking about is forcing people to live in poverty by government mandate to fight climate change. (So much for the war on poverty I guess, now poverty is the solution!) It's about putting a hard, government enforced ceiling on the level of prosperity one is allowed to earn, and making that ceiling lower than most peoples' current living standards. All so one individual nation can fight climate change, because there's no way the entire world is going to agree to this. After centuries of democracy and prosperity, people will kill over that, and they would be right to. It's also ineffective and unnecessary. The amount of carbon saved would be offset by the massive internal security and enforcement departments needed to achieve any of this, and it would stifle innovation as the social/cultural motivations that encourage it in the populace are removed by government mandate. It would also kill the economy and consequently make governments poorer due to the loss in tax revenue. I'm pretty left by American standards, but I believe in American founding principles. If that shit ever starts I'm going to be dealing in illegal wood-fired generators, and helping the more militant resistance properly encrypt/secure their communications until such time as the government is overthrown. But democracy still works here, so thankfully I can be confident enough that's never going to happen that I can post about it here.