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