Making energy more expensive makes everything more expensive. Those at the margins will find themselves even closer to the edge, while those who thought they were secure find themselves less so. The vouchers and whatnot that were supposed to offset the effects are mostly captured by the same type of rent-seekers and parasites that capture nearly any other form of aid. Widespread unrest and starvation result.
The unwashed masses you speak of, those that are struggling, simply don't use that much 'energy'; or at least the most polluting forms. They live in small flats, eat whatever's in the shop, sit in and watch TV, and walk or get the bus to work.
If they pollute, they do so as a side-effect of misallocation - e.g. food is shipped halfway across the world not because it has to be or should be but because low fossil fuel prices make it viable; electricity has high carbon impact (e.g. UK ~0.3kg/kWh) for historical reasons; etc.
They certainly don't fly about or do anything that has no replacement at present.
A country letting things get become "too expensive" in these silly monetary coupon terms and so everyone starves would be a complete governance failure.
Then again, some countries are currently failed states in that sense; in the UK we don't care if people get enough to eat, we give them some pictures of the queen's face if they jump through a ton of hoops and hope it works out. That likely wouldn't be viable.
Can you elaborate on how you came to the conclusion that global warming == extinction? To discuss the question of what would be "as bad" as global warming, me need to ~agree on what those bad outcomes actually are.
Im skeptical that climate change will ever make humanity extinct. Lead to highly undesirables states, yes, but extinction, no.
I've been what many would call a climate change alarmist for a couple of decades now.
I think it's also quite unlikely that climate change, or even results from it, will make humans extinct. Even if climate change triggers some kind of global thermonuclear war, which I think is a small possibility, I'm pretty convinced that humans are here to stay.
Maybe not many of us, but some.
In my opinion, extinction isn't the main worry. Collapse of civilization should be what we're trying to avoid. And that is a real possibility I think.
Thank you. Regardless if I can follow you to "collapse of civilization" being a likely consequence or not, this is a step in the direction of a nuanced discussion.
(As an aside, Im not convinced humans are here to stay, but for very different reasons.)