Another idea I've had that may be of use:
PYTHONLOGGING environment variable.
Setting PYTHONLOGGING to any log level or level name will initialize logging.basicConfig() with that appropriate level.
Another option would be that -x dev or a different -x logging will initialize basic config.
Will be useful mostly for debugging purposes instead of temporarily modifying the code.
Kinda surprised it doesn't exist tbh.
Bar Harel