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!

There’s always disagreement between the carrot and the stick. It’s high time for both: the carrot or renewable energy and EVs and the stick of higher gas prices. We’ve wasted hundreds of billions of dollars over the last few decades trying everything except renewables: it’s time to focus on building out the obvious answer rather than finding yet another way to avoid reality while making fossil fuel executives even wealthier

But we had those incentives

• we had incentives to build out a solar industry, but no one had the patience when it’s more profitable to just let Chinese companies do it
• we had incentives for wind, and we do have huge generating capacity in a few areas but we were finally getting to building our wind for less resource rich areas (offshore wind in the northeast).
• we had incentives for companies to invest in wind and solar and retooling for new technology. Spent and thrown out before any results: it’s just more profitable to buy from China
• we had incentives for consumers to adopt solar - they were claiming a payback period of only like 5 years even here where there’s no sun
• we had incentives to make EVs cost comparable to gas cars, to guarantee a market to manufacturers and to help Manufacturers transition. It was incentive driven for all sides

I hate to be cynical of incentives but our entire economy of the last 12 years is the “face eating leopard” economy. Continuing to step on our own feet as we stumble drunkenly down the stairs is an underrated cause of Chinas success