I have been thinking about gas lately.
There has been a lot of complaining about the high prices lately along with calls for oil companies heads, accusations of price gouging, and ways consumers can fight back against big oil, so just thought I should add my voice too.
First of all, they tell us that the environmentally sustainable amount of gasoline divied evenly around the world equates to 5 litres for all of British Columbia in a given year. That means each of the 4 million residents gets 0.00000125 litres to burn per year. Considering it takes more greenhouse gas to produce a car than the car will emit in its life time, maybe the price of gas is not that big of an issue?
But I digress. Most of the forwarded emails we get as ways to fight back really make me laugh. Here are a few of them:
1) Here is one that you may have seen on myspace:
DO NOT PUMP GAS ON MAY 15TH...
On May 15th all myspace members are to not go to the gas station in protest high gas prices. Gas is now over $3.00 a gallon in most places. There are 72,110,073 members currently on the network, and the average car takes about 20 to 30 dollars to fill up. If all myspace members did not go to the pump on the 15th it would take $2,163,302,190.00 out of the oil company's pockets for just one day, so please do not go to the gas station on May 15th and lets try to put a dent in the oil industry for at least one day.
If you agree (which I cant see why you wouldn't) repost this bulletin repost it with "Don't pump gas on May 15th, 2007"---
Actually, I don't see why you would repost this bulletin. Even if everyone did this, this email Doesn't mention anything about not using LESS gas! lol. It just offsets the purchase of the fuel.
I am going to do 1 of 2 things on May 15th.
a) Not buy any gas. This is the most probable since I don't drive much anymore, so I usually wait until we leave Vancouver where it is not $1.30/litre.
b) Buy gas. On second thought I think everyone should refrain from purchasing gas on May 15th so there will be no line-ups for me. Ya. Think about how much fuel will be saved when no one has to idle their engines waiting for an available pump.
2) This one is my favorite:
It goes something like don't buy gas from the two largest gas companies. If they are not selling any gas they will reduce their price, and the other stations will follow suit.
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Ya, this is really quite humorous. What would happen is the other stations would raise their prices because the demand has gone up with fewer stations selling the same amount of fuel. These stations would buy from the companies not selling at their stations (at a higher price too).
Maybe this is why there is less competition in the market now. Just Joking.
3) Another funny I received in my email before.
In case you do not know, there was an incident where a driver suffered burns and his car severely damaged when gasoline vapors ignited an explosion while he was talking on his mobile phone standing near the attendant who was pumping the gas. All the electronic devices in gas stations are protected with explosive containment devices, (intrinsically safe) while cell phones are not. READ YOUR HANDBOOK!----
In other words cell phones can cause gas stations to explode. Cell phones run at a much lower voltage than say your car battery, so nothing to worry about here.
Okay, so the common theme with 1) and 2) above and many other emails going around like those is you can used as much gas as ever and still punish the oil companies. In other words, you can have your cake and eat it too. If your intent on spending less on gas - drive less.
What do you think?
