[acdha]

Less wasteful is a huge, unsupported claim contradicted by many examples. As a simple one, think about how much electricity the 1990 PC user consumed compared to one today – EnergyStar encouraged that but it had basically nobody cared about it enough to whine about it, much less riot. Lightbulbs did have some efforts to turn them into a conservative rallying point but even Trump supporting it wasn’t enough to get traction because only the most diehard ideologues are going to say they want to give more of their money to the utility company.

The real lesson here is that the best way is to give people clear price signals. Stop subsidizing fossil fuel consumption and suddenly people will make less wasteful choices in many areas. We saw this in the US before fracking took off, when fuel economy was creeping up because $4/gallon gas was enough to get people thinking about whether they really needed a Suburban to take 1-2 people grocery shopping.

The Arab & French protests did involve fuel pricing but that was more in the sense of being the last straw than an unavoidable cause. If the French government hadn’t been using that to lower taxes on the wealthy, for example, or simply been less unpopular before it started, it wouldn’t have flared up like that. It’s a valid concern but I wouldn’t generalize too much from a more complex scenario than it might appear. Especially in the US, where the average family could make substantial energy usage reductions with simple, low-impact changes (combining trips, reducing food waste, insulating houses, replacing antique appliances, etc. are not the stuff of revolution).