I don't want to be a capricious critic on this topic, but I'm going to start this missive out by saying: Today's gas strike will not work.
While I am wholly supportive of Americans coming together at a grassroots level to do something about fuel costs skyrocketing toward five dollars per gallon, simply not purchasing gas on a pre-determined date is not a consumer action that will have long-term impact. Either you bought gas yesterday, or you will do it tomorrow or the next day. All this gas strike is doing is changing a spending pattern.
We must address consumption.
Today, take five minutes before you load up into your vehicle and think about where you are going to drive and how you're going to get there. Are your routes the most efficient possible? Are there phone calls you can make instead of physically driving to a location? Are there ways to divide tasks so that you and a neighbor aren't both making essentially the same trips in two vehicles? How about you take all the kids to soccer practice, and your neighbor picks them up and grabs that quart of milk you needed, too?
Today, consider what you're driving. Yes, that SUV is great when it comes to luxury and space. Is that luxury worth the c-note you're gonna pay at the pump today, or tomorrow? A generation ago, we figured out how to get Johnny and Susie to practice, the tutor, and the dentist, in a much smaller vehicle. Sometimes, it was the only vehicle in the family. Convenience is nice when it can be attained. Ours is a generation that has become a slave to it. Has convenience become your master?
Today, consider whether you need to drive at all. Do you hear that bike in the garage calling you? Have you noticed the expanded routes and bus service in town? Yes, it takes a little more time to get to work that way, but it's money in your pocket when you literally drive past the gas station without NEED to stop. Today's gas strike is just a deferral of the inevitable, unless we change our patterns of consumption.
Tomorrow, do any or all of these things to continue decreasing your dependence upon oil.
Tomorrow, be a different consumer than you are today. This, and only this, will change the shape of what is happening at the gas pump.
2 comments:
Why don't we just drill for more oil in this country? Compressed natural gas would also work. That way when we buy gas it goes to an American not to someone who would like to slit our throat. I truley love driving a large vehicle.
I think your comments are spot on. We may as well resign ourselves to the fact that the only control we have in our insatiable thirst for fossil fuel is the way in which we choose to use it. Big Oil is going to wring every cent they can out of a gallon and we are going to pay their price. As in most matters, personal responsibility and co-operative enterprise is the most viable approach. Yes, the gas guzzlers will probably have to go and they have been such a luxurious privilege. Mother Earth, however, will be ever so thankful to see them gone. Thank you Susanne.
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