“The people who really should suffer, won’t.”
Agreed. The biggest problem is that Sacramento and Washington D.C. are populated with people who only see the sterilized end product of civilization. They turn on their faucets for water, push up the thermostat, eat nicely packaged fresh food bought at the local Whole Foods store. The nitty gritty precursors to their comforts entirely escape them and thus repel them whenever they are called to confront thorny issues like fertilizing soils, fighting off the ravenous insects and pests, digging out the coal, pumping the gas and oil, and storing water. The bureaucracies are populated by professional managers, scientists and political brown nosing minions who would faint if they had to cross a cow pasture.
Wouldn’t it be funny to send them all back in time to, say, the pre-steam 18th century?