Prices for consumers increasing thricefold will send a major part of the population deep into debt (e.g. >20% of the German population have no financial reserves at all, living paycheck to paycheck) and drop a major part of the middle class down to the living standard of the (pre-2020) lower class.
I mean, sure, you're right, it's not the end of the world, we will recover from this and hopefully emerge with renewables everywhere, but even if we manage this crisis optimally, the next few years will be quite rocky both politically and economically here in Europe.
And I'm quite scared what happens if we should fuck up, because...
> and will actual push people to be more responsible
... this whole mess can also, alternatively, push people to extreme, simple "solutions" offered by more extremist parts of the political spectrum instead. :/
No, more like 10X.
>but if the poorest are helped accordingly it's not so bad and will actual push people to be more responsible.
This is not a case of "government can cap the bills" or "government can provide subsidies to help pay for higher bills" or, even, "government can ration electricity". Setting aside the inflationary and other side effects of doing so, *SUBSIDIES AND RATIONING DON'T MATTER IF THERE IS NO SUPPLY*.
Good joke!
But no, instead of calling for behavioral change, what do the politicians say now? Subsidize!
Thank god I live in Switzerland. The most democratic country in the world, and Europe's least dependent on Russian Gas.
When outside temperature is -30 C pretty much anyone who does not want to freeze to death…
https://gazenergie.ch/de/wissen/detail/knowledge-topic/3-her...