Trump (unintentionally) made gas prices skyrocket and just caused one of the most lopsided elections in modern US history.

To be honest, there is a massive difference between prices going up because of taxes and going up because someone started a stupid war and told everyone costs were going down.

Yep, massive expansion of solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and maybe nuclear power for some base load in combination with large amounts of battery capacity is the way to go. General enforcement of electrification is needed. Every instance where hydrocarbons are simply used for their energy content instead of their chemical properties has to be replaced by the grid (outside of emergency measures). I am sure that this would be more than enough to get global emissions under control, and would also lead to more geopolitical stability.

Asking middle and especially lower class people to pay more for energy, even just in the short term, runs the risk of turning them against eco-conscious legislation.

It's not just about the ones that can't afford to pay more for the energy, there also usually isn't a viable alternative available for them to even look at moving toward instead. It's one thing to make a decision pay more for convenience, if you have another option. If there is no other option, you just feel like you're getting personally fucked.

In the US, all of the public transit infrastructure outside of like 4 major cities is dogshit. There may be a bus, that doesn't go everywhere, runs at odd times, and is poorly maintained. Technically available, but if you need to travel across town to work, takes 3 hours one way to do so through 2 different transfer stations. And since everything was built around personal vehicles, things are also not within walking distance even if you are lucky enough to work from home or have something closer.

Having a car is a necessity for most of the country. Without having viable alternatives, increased fuel prices aren't going to actually fix anything, just turn people even more against any changes.

This is why things like EVs are a good middle ground with the current lack of public infrastructure available nationwide. It's an easy drop in replacement that's a better ongoing option, with a side effect of also costing less to maintain along the way.

Yeah, if we could have been building out the renewable energy infrastructure since 2021 like we needed to be doing, then by now it could already be a viable enough alternative that we would be able to end fossil fuel subsidies without too many people feeling the pinch, and even the stragglers would climb on board the green energy express shortly after. At that point it would be time to start ramping up taxes on fossil fuels to disincentivize it for the billionaires who would be insulated from the original price jumps.

But no, fucken Joe Manchin had to side with republicans on blocking the original Green New Deal so that we ended up with a fucking neutered compromise.

So now we have two roads in front of us: we can start building the renewable energy infrastructure and converting the grid. Or we can continue feeling the squeeze tighter and tighter each year until the price of oil is the least of our worries as food and water become scarcer and scarcer.

Choose wisely!

We still have corporate carbon taxes in effect, for now. I know there were talks about carving out exceptions for certain provinces that were hit hard by them but I haven't kept up on that thread.

Yes, that's the point, to get all of those industries to move to renewables instead. I agree it would have to happen slowly, but you could take the money directly from the taxes and ending subsidies on fossil fuels and apply them to subsidies on renewable tech. It wouldn't take too long before rhe crossover happened.