Yesterday the L.A. Times’ editorial board used the “s-word” and it was sweet and satisfying. Smart and serious. “Surviving climate change means an end to burning fossil fuels. Prepare yourself for sacrifices.”

Imagine that — “sacrifices”! — And in the title even.

“What is required, at a minimum, is a radical change, as quickly as possible, in the way the world produces and consumes energy. The goal is to eliminate most future emissions, especially of carbon, and to “capture” the carbon that is emitted so that it does not enter the atmosphere.”

Completing its no-BS three-part series on the urgent affair of the environment, the Times lays down the gauntlet. Society will have to adapt by “crafting approaches to handle the flow of migrants as regions of the world become uninhabitable, protecting people in low-lying lands from rising oceans, and preparing for the excessive heat, longer droughts, more ferocious hurricanes and other extreme weather events that will, among other things, threaten the global food supply.“

The thinking is so clear that it starts to describe a world that is not just cleaner and more efficient, but better than life with internal combustion, with a higher quality of life.

What will our world look like in 15 years if we begin to do what we have to do? Charging stations for motor vehicles as plentiful as gas stations are now. A significant drop in gas-powered vehicles through phased-out production, and government-funded buyback programs to get older cars off the road. Millions of people working to create new power systems; the world needs cheaper and more efficient solar panels, bigger and more efficient energy storage systems, more utility-scale renewable production facilities and more efficient hydro and geothermal technologies. Oil companies will no longer have such disproportionate influence on government policy. Perhaps they will have become energy companies, transitioning away from fossil fuels — or perhaps they will have been superseded by new energy providers.

But it keeps it honest:

Sacrifice will be a part of this too. Doing the right thing will require shifts in employment, changes in consumer habits (cutting way back on meat consumption, for instance, reduces global carbon emissions). We will drive less, ride more public transit, use less air conditioning. Costs will undoubtedly rise for goods we’ve taken for granted.

We’re grateful for both the medicine and the spoon full of sugar.