If climate change is an existential threat, we should be engineering a rise in gas prices, and cheering when peoples' lifestyles take a hit. If you truly belie

If climate change is an existential threat, we should be engineering a rise in gas prices, and cheering when peoples' lifestyles take a hit. If you truly believe climate change is super serious, then logically government ought to put its thumb on the scale to ensure a lot of people get priced out of energy intensive products like air conditioning, leaving their computers on at night, meat, aluminum, and so on. If you're a nationalist, it's even better if the people we're impoverishing are overseas, and therefore the poverty we create to save the planet is Somebody Else's Problem. It's like people on the left have two conflicting goals, and haven't figured out how to deal with their mutual exclusivity: - We have to Save the Planet, so we need to stop being Evil Greedy Capitalists and using a bunch of energy. - We have to Help the Poor, so we need to stop the Evil Greedy Capitalists from making energy expensive and keeping it out of reach of the poor. (Personally, I believe climate change is real and human-caused, but its worst effects will take place over many years, and we'll have enough time to adapt to it. If New York City will be underwater by 2080, so be it. Manhattanites will figure out that they need to relocate when the water is lapping at their ankles; they won't stick around until it's over their heads. I subscribe to the Millian view that technology and abundance generally helps human progress, so we ought to be focused on making energy as cheap as possible. For example, fusion research is woefully underfunded relative to its potential.)