France, 2018. The country is paralyzed by a huge series of protests against moves by President Emmanuel Macron to raise green taxation on fuel while simultaneously abolishing the wealth tax on the superrich. The protestors become known as the gilets jaunes, or “yellow vests.” Such is the fury that the president is forced to reverse the increase in fuel tax. Climate policymaking at its most class-blind, his high-handed move spectacularly backfires.

With Europe crippled by high gas and energy prices this winter, there are some who have been saying this is an opportunity to speed a green transition, a kind of shock treatment to get us all somehow “used” to high energy prices and being forced to consume less.

Given the suffering these dramatic increases in prices are inflicting on poor people across the continent, forcing many to choose between heating and eating, such hair-shirt sentiments seem brutal to me. I suspect they’re rarely made by those who themselves will struggle to pay their heating bills.