If you've gotten the forward that states boycotting all gas stations on May 15th will cost the oil companies $3 billion, then hopefully you scratched your head like I did and went, "Wait, no?".
This blog sums up my reaction perfectly. I don't know the author. I just googled "No gas on May 15th" and it was the first to come up. I especially liked the response of the 6th commentor. Let's all boycott Shell. They seem to be the most expensive around here, anyway.
What are your reactions to this forward? Do you plan on boycotting all gas stations on the 15th of May? Or do you plan on not driving at all on the 15th of May? What can we, the pitiful blue-collar working people of this country do to prevent gas prices from reaching $4/gallon (which I heard is in our near future)?
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9 comments:
Yeah, the idea is pretty obviously flawed. Almost everything in these kinds of e-mail forwards has been shown to be an urban legend on snopes.com; this particular one is at http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/nogas.asp.
The way supply and demand works, the only effective way to "protest" high gas prices if is a large-scale demand decrease occurs after price increases. With gas, that just doesn't happen; we all drive almost exactly as much as we did when gas was cheaper, because we all rely on gas so much. The sad truth is that from a free-market perspective, gas is still UNDERpriced.
And, incidentally, for why boycotting just one oil company would not lower gas prices either:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasout.asp.
Bah Jeremy stole the links I was going to post here. :-) But look! I'll make them clickable!
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/nogas.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasout.asp
Anyways, I do think that we as consumers should look more into decreasing the NEED for gas. Walking more, driving less, taking public transportation when available, using bikes and hybrid cars, etc. Of course that's all easy to say and less easy to accomplish because in reality, we all like the convenience a car affords. It seems difficult to do a mass boycott of sorts.
But hey, I've never taken an economics class, so I could be just blabbing here.
When I was in Ireland, gas was already about $4-$5 a gallon (after you converted liter->gallon and Euro->dollar). It was about €1.20 per liter.
So, even at $3.00 a gallon, our gas is still cheap.
It does annoy me that the oil companies have so much profit. Seems like they would be wise to take a huge chunk of that to develop clean, cheap alternatives.
On the other hand, I think gas will have to get to $4 a gallon before people really start changing the way they drive.
So, Flash, question: In Ireland, do they take measures to reduce their gasoline consumption since it is so expensive there? Are there more hybrids? More bicyclists? More pedestrians?
Gas in Peru was around $3/gallon when I moved in 2001. People there definitely drove less. It was really odd for a family to have more than one car (unless you were rich). More common was not to have a car at all. There were plenty of taxis and buses. The bus fair was only about 30 cents! And to go across town in a taxi was about $2-3. On Saturdays I would take a city bus to school if I needed to be there for a project or something. I would ride in the bus for an hour, and then get out and walk another 15 minutes. :-) That was just the way of life - it didn't bother you because that's how life was. And we were much thinner than Americans.
Another thing about Peru was that things were so much closer. They had bodegas on every street corner - little convenience stores usually in garages. I would run up there for necessities. I could walk to the grocery store. I could pretty much get anywhere walking. Here, though (in Atlanta anyways), it's so much harder. Not only do stores tend not to be within walking distance (residential areas together, commercial areas together), but there are little to no sidewalks or cross walks unless you live in the city (with expensive rent). Even in my area - which is probably 80% poor hispanic - there are few sidewalks and the side roads don't have streetlights.
I know big cities like NYC accommodate walking so much better. However, in the suburbs, it's very difficult.
Just some observations. :-)
Ashley, I agree about the frustration of living in pedestrian-unfriendly areas. We didn't like where we lived in Indianapolis for that reason. It was really close to everything, but you couldn't walk to anything. No crosswalks, very busy roads, no sidewalks. We like West Lafayette better because it is more pedestrian oriented. Possibly because it is a college town and a lot of the students are international which means they didn't bring a car on the plane when they came. :-) So we can walk to restaurants and grocery stores and there is a bus that will pick up students for free and non-students for only $1. But still, taking two kids on a bus?
I would love to be less relient on our car, for sure. Maybe that's something I can focus on more. The problem is, our church and bible studies are 30 minutes away by car.
There are plenty of projects and ideas floating around. SAE holds competitions for hybrid Formula cars (of which I may participate!). There's the 100 mpg vehicle contest. I can't think of any others but the alternatives are being developed.
Hybrid cars have been a good start, but the technology needed to advance to the next stage requires a national commitment and cash. So I honestly don't see anything happening until fuel reaches $4-5/gal.
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