Any Way You Slice It

"This richly informative and deeply courageous book . . . tackles one of [our] greatest taboos: the need to consume less and to fairly share what's left." ―Naomi Klein,New York Times–bestselling author of The Shock Doctrine

Rationing: it's a word—and idea—that people often loathe and fear. Yet societies in fact ration food, water, medical care, and fuel all the time, with those who can pay the most getting the most.

In Any Way You Slice It, Stan Cox shows that rationing is not just a quaint practice restricted to World War II memoirs and 1970s gas station lines. Instead, he persuasively argues that rationing is a vital concept for our fragile present, an era of dwindling resources and environmental crises. Any Way You Slice It takes us on a fascinating search for alternative ways of apportioning life's necessities, from the goal of "fair shares for all" during wartime in the 1940s to present-day water rationing in a Mumbai slum, from the bread shops of Cairo to the struggle for fairness in American medicine and carbon rationing on Norfolk Island in the Pacific. Cox's question: can we limit consumption while assuring everyone a fair share?

The author of Losing Our Cool, the widely acclaimed examination of air-conditioning's many impacts, here turns his attention to the politically explosive topic of how we share our planet's resources.

"A brilliant opening of a global dialogue on who gets what, when, why, and how." ―David W. Orr, Paul Sears Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics, Oberlin College

"A must–read for those who want to forge real change before the ecological doomsday clock strikes midnight." ―Jeffrey St. Clair, editor of CounterPunch and author of Born Under a Bad Sky