alt Hacker News> I don't know how you guys in Europe managed to gaslight yourselves into justifying regression of social and technological development
Many of us believe that the alternative is a serious risk of severe climate change that would be much more disruptive. Not being able to use your washing machine at night is going to seem like the smallest of minor inconveniences if crops start failing and we don't have food, or cites end up underwater triggering mass migration into neighbouring areas and that leads to large scale societal conflict.
Of course, if you don't believe that those things will happen then caring about climate change seems irrational. But belief in (anthropogenic) climate change is the mainstream view on all sides of the political spectrum in most of Europe.
How do you explain that basically all European countries tax electricity much higher than fossil gas? Countries like Germany and the UK make the US look good when it comes to heat pump adoption.
More ironically, air conditioning is tolerated if powered by oil (like in cars), but not by electricity (like in buildings). At least Europe is better at EV adoption, but still far behind many parts of Asia.