[lg]

Consider the american built environment since WW2, gas at 7.50/gal would simply make many people’s daily lives unaffordable, and the most impacted people have the largest clout politically due to the rural bias at every level of our government. We would happily commit climate suicide first.

[pfdietz]

It would make people buy electric cars, or just trade 20 mpg SUVs for 40 mpg small cars.

If there is a rural bias, the solution would be to subsidize the rural areas to buy their votes. The solution to a problem of the commons, and the distribution of benefits, are separable (Coase Theorem).