Got an email promoting the boycott of buying gasoline on the 15th of this month.
There are a couple of reasons why those types of actions will never have any effect.
OK, so we all agree not to buy gas on the 15th? That means everyone rushes in to fill up on the 14th, so they will have plenty to carry them through. Or they will fill up on the 16th, because they're running low.
You are still going to be purchasing the product, because you are still going to be using the product. You need to eliminate the need to purchase their product, if you want to hit them in their collective wallets.
If you want to take action against the oil companies, everyone needs to pull their vehicle into the garage, and leave it there for 30 days. Do not drive, which means you are not using gasoline. If you're not using it, you do not need to purchase any. Now, you have the oil companies' attention, because gasoline sales have come to a screeching halt, from coast to coast.
Now. How many of you are ready to park your vehicles for 30 days? That means you walk, ride a bicycle or roller-skate everywhere you go for one month. Need groceries? Hop on the bicycle. Got a 30 mile commute to work? Better leave a little earlier tomorrow. Got a date? They still make bicycles built for two.
Therein lies the problem. Nobody is going to give up their vehicle for a month. And the oil companies know it. They own you and they know that, too.
I drive a quad-cab, 4WD Dakota. Gas mileage is in the toilet. When I was still working at the shop, driving back and forth to work, grocery-shopping, going to church, going to Lodge and very little else, I would have to purchase 20 gallons of gasoline about every three weeks. Eliminating that drive to work and back saves me a tremendous amount of fuel. I just filled up a couple days ago, for only the fifth time since last August. I've purchased less than 90 gallons of fuel in the last eight months. Yes, I said "months". At the rate I'm currently going, my annual fuel usage has dropped from around 340 gallons a year to around 135 gallons a year.
If you could get everyone in the country to reduce their fuel purchases by that same 60%, that would also get the attention of the oil companies. But you know what? Trying to get people to do that will be like stripping bark off a birch.
No more than fuel prices have risen in the last 10 years, this country is already starting to experience some cultural changes. For decades, people have tried to move out and away from city centers. Now, particularly in large metropolitan areas, people are looking to move back into the heart of cities. The price of fuel has made their commute suddenly taste a bit sour.
The girl in Scotland I was engaged to didn't have a car. We had a place in a small village about 8 miles east of Stirling. But it was right on the bus line. If we needed groceries, we would ride the bus to another village and back again. If we needed a lot of groceries, we would have them delivered. We could ride the bus to Stirling, jump on a train and be in Edinburgh in just over an hour. It was the same if we needed to go to Glasgow. We could grab a bus to Stirling, jump on a train for Glasgow Queen's Street station, ride the shuttle bus to Glasgow Central, take a train to Gourock, ride the ferry across the Firth of Forth and be in Dunoon in less time that it took to drive that same distance. And at a fraction of what petrol would have cost, no less.
Public transportation of that level is non-existent in this country. Because everyone has to have their own vehicle and wants to be shackled to the oil companies.
Not buying gas for a day? That's a joke. Not buying gas for a month. Now that's a consumer statement.
