[mschuster91]

> High gas prices is probably this single most effective way to curb greenhouse gases

Partially. The problem is, if you allow (or introduce) a high gas price as a politician, you'll be causing social unrest - and that not just in the US where having a car is mandatory outside of the core of urbanized areas, but also even in modern places like France where precisely that was the cause of the infamous Yellow Vest riots. And that social unrest can deal way more damage long term than the GHG emissions you'd save - social unrest is how the 45th took power. Imagine a repeat of the 45th (or someone even worse)... say goodbye to anything done on the political side to curb GHG emissions.

> taking mass transit where available

Yes, the problem is that you'd need reliable mass transit in the first place. And in many areas - again not just in the US but worldwide - mass transit is either not existing at all outside of urban areas or very spotty (i.e. once in the morning and once in the afternoon as school bus). Governments will have to take a lot of money to build out that first. And in urban areas, the side effects of large homeless and/or mentally unwell people makes mass transit pretty unattractive, so again governments will have to take even more money to fix that mess.

We're all sitting on decades worth of political ignorance and now climate change, Putin and a lot of the population (the ones who deny climate change) collide together in a perfect storm event. And I'm not sure which way out it will take.