[longtom]

> You're under the impression the first thing that would go in such a scenario would be the life-saving stuff?

I think once we admit nature to be more important than humans, we will quickly slip on the slope and reduce consumption too far. Politics is largely dumb, so the risk is there. What you call leisure and dispensable is someone else's existence (e.g. the tourism industry). Central redistribution is hard and mostly does not work and gets abused. There are few historical examples in which it worked well and many in which it has failed.