Saving Gas/Energy for the Average Joe
Hi I'm Vee!
Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C ERegistered User regular
Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C ERegistered User regular
I'm not sure how many of you have heard about this, but there's apparently a movement going around myspace and facebook (and e-mail, I think) regarding a plan to boycott gas for a day, specifically May 15. It's meant to be a protest against high gas prices, a way to show the oil companies that "we're not going to take it" or whatever.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I honestly don't believe this will accomplish anything except mildly inconvenience some people. First of all, myspace and facebook is primarily a 14-30 year old crowd. I don't have any statistics, but I'm sure that a pretty significant portion of gas purchasers are over the age of 30. Secondly, people are just going to end up buying extra gas on the 14th to make it through the 15th, or, if they have enough, just purchase their gas on the 16th. I don't see this affecting the monthly or even weekly sales of gas companies.
If anything, this kind of thing harms the anti-gasoline movement, because it lets people feel good about "accomplishing" something when they actually did nothing. Instead, these people should be trying to take more public transportation, driving "less hard" (there's a driving technique that rather significantly reduces the amount of gas you use), or even purchasing a hybrid car.
Am I being dense? Is there something obvious I'm forgetting? Because this idea doesn't seem very economically sound to me.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I honestly don't believe this will accomplish anything except mildly inconvenience some people. First of all, myspace and facebook is primarily a 14-30 year old crowd. I don't have any statistics, but I'm sure that a pretty significant portion of gas purchasers are over the age of 30. Secondly, people are just going to end up buying extra gas on the 14th to make it through the 15th, or, if they have enough, just purchase their gas on the 16th. I don't see this affecting the monthly or even weekly sales of gas companies.
If anything, this kind of thing harms the anti-gasoline movement, because it lets people feel good about "accomplishing" something when they actually did nothing. Instead, these people should be trying to take more public transportation, driving "less hard" (there's a driving technique that rather significantly reduces the amount of gas you use), or even purchasing a hybrid car.
Am I being dense? Is there something obvious I'm forgetting? Because this idea doesn't seem very economically sound to me.
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It isn't. Simply not buying gas on a certain day has little-to-no overall effect on the company...if you're still driving, you're still using gas, so you'll still just buy more tomorrow. If you want to make a difference, it's like you said; you need to drive a more efficient car, drive more efficiently, or drive less.
But that requires actual effort and lifestyle change, which most people are unwilling to take on. So people would rather make themselves feel good by doing something easy that actually does nothing...like a one-day gas boycott.
Yes.
People on myspace and facebook, apparently.
Which shocks me. I thought facebook and myspace was filled with well-read scholars.
The gas companies don't pay attention to any one particular day. They look at their monthly revenue, or, maybe, if they're being really myopic, their weekly.
If you want to boycott gas and have it have an effect, do it for a month.
Though, really, gas prices aren't anywhere near high enough. We pay way, way less than people do in most of the developed world.
I think it's a little of both? I'm not sure how it will do anything for the environment, but then, see the "makes us feel good" argument.
It does seem like it's more "we all want cars to cost less so we can have cars", than anything relating to actual concern over exploitation through higher prices, or the environment.
I'd say maybe a "use only public transport" agreement for the school year would be better? Maybe petitioning for better Public systems? Bringing it up in a state senate, or even to the school...? Really, anything but this would probably have a greater impact.
This won't do anything whatsoever, maybe if you went a week or two and used the bus. Otherwise, one day won't do anything.
Every fights a food fight when you're a cannibal.
I left oil and gas to go work for run of river hydro.
Even on my shittiest days, I take a lot of solace in the fact that I'm doing something good. :P
Though, with more cars idling on the 14th, waiting in line to get gas, the gas companies may see a slight increase in revenue for the month of May.
The county that my college is in has a pretty good bus system, and my college has its own massive bus system (at least as large as the county's own system and just for students) to make up for the few areas where the county buses are inadequate. Barely anyone bothers to get a car (unless they have rich parents). Really, if you're in a big-ish university and they don't run their own buses, go to them and start asking for a program or something, because they certainly have the money.
I mean, enough money gets wasted on stupid groups in most colleges (a group with too much money on its hands, I am not making this up, had an energy-saving contest where the prize consisted of massive plasma-screen TVs, for instance) it's nice to see some of it go to good use.
I tried to use the local bus system's website to plan several trips. To class, to the airport, to work, etc.
Almost all of them ended up the same way:
"Sorry, no service at date/time specified."
It also strikes me as a great way to dick around the utilities and waste energy on a massive scale. Electricity doesn't simply sit in underground tanks and wait to be used, they produce it as needed and several methods don't turn on and off quickly.
I agree that boycotting buying gas for one day won't really have any effect, but to call gasoline frivolous is to completely misunderstand the US infrastructure. Quite simply, for many people, it is impossible to get to and from work or school without using a personal vehicle.
Public transportation outside of most major US metropolitan areas is severely limited.
Anecdote lol, but the only way I could avoid using any gasoline on the May 15th would be to take the day off of work and not run any errands at all. From my home, the nearest bus stop is over 5 miles away, and I have no desire to carry milk for five miles only to see that it's turned on the way home.
That could just be the computer systems sucking. If they barely have the money for buses, they damn well won't have the money to have a really well-built computer lookup system going.
Depends where you are, and what kind of job you work.
When I lived in Phoenix, the nearest bus stop for me was about 2-3 miles away, and only ran M-F and during "normal" business hours. Which pretty much meant if you worked retail your ass was driving...which was already the case because your ass lived 2-3 miles from a bus stop.
However, I'm living in a small college town now (town has maybe 30K residents, college of about 10K students) and we've actually got a pretty decent little bus system going. One, it's free (paid for by a combination of taxes and student fees). Two, it runs pretty much anywhere in town people are likely to go, and within short (maybe a mile) distance of anywhere else. It runs on a decent schedule, though still largely limited to "business+" hours, or something like 7am-7pm. But for getting to/from most classes from anywhere within town, or for getting from campus to pretty much any local business, it works beautifully.
Of course from what I've seen most people, even those who could easily take advantage of it, still just drive.
I should have included college towns with major metro areas because of the subsidized bus systems most have. I used the bus when I was in college (didn't even own a car), and I used it when I lived in San Jose (I owned a car, but public transit was cheaper and more convenient), but in the suburban sprawl of Colorado Springs, even if I want to take the bus, I need to drive to the bus stop to do it unless I want to walk five miles to the movie theater (nearest bus stop).
My job is a factor (I work on an Air Force base 10 miles outside of town), but my wife works in the same town we live in, and she can either drive for 30 minutes to work or spend more in bus fare than gas costs and take 90 minutes to get to work.
I know there are exceptions, but by and large, the public transit system in the US is a joke.
Thing is, in most non-college towns, the US doesn't have the population density to make it profitable.
At least to start, the community would probably need to eat some of the cost (or subsidize it with taxes). It's a sad fact that we're more concerned with cost than environmental consciousness, but when public transit is of comparable cost to driving but takes twice as long, nobody except for those without a car is going to use it.
If it's going to take longer to get there on the bus or train then the bus or train needs to be the cheaper option. When public transit can get Joe Sixpack there faster, that's when he'll pay the same or more to take the train as he will to drive.
Personally, I wouldn't mind having it rolled into my taxes, but that's because I would use it if I were able to.
Is is it better in the non-metro non-college areas of large countries anywhere else? I think it's a consequence of having a population density of 31 people per square km.
Edit: I am slow.
Nothing runs late at night though, so going out drinking usually means an expensive cab
Objections?
actually, i waswatching a thingy on the bbc today about reducing carbon emissions by slightly altering our day to day lives, and was thinking of starting a thread on that. I'd love to include *reducing our carbon shoe size without those creepy foot bindings*
Do it, then, my threads never get past 7 pages of discussion.
1) Home
energy saving bulbs are worth investing in
turn down the thermostat. For every degree, it's something like 1/3rd a ton of carbon per year. (25 ton total per year per household average in the UK)
2)Driving
If most people converted to 60 mile per gallon vehicles* for their main mode of transport, we could knock off one of the seven items *that number may be off
3)Power Generation
Low carbon generation needs to start happening. They mentioned nuclear as being a potential huge savior, if people would stop being retarded about it.
They showed some off shore windfarms. Huge turbines with diameters of football fields. Very neat idea, low eco footprint, too far at sea to bother people with ugliness. We'd need a lot more to make a huge difference, but it's a neat slice of the green generation pie
4)Carbon Reduction
Ok, that's not 7, not by a long shot, i'm sure that more than one of the points above accounted for two or so of the 7 on dudes list, what do you want? It was just something I saw on tv.
For some devices, this means unplugging them after every use. It's hard to purchase things with an honest-to-God power switch anymore. From my living room, here's a quick list.
Stuff that actually turns off
- PS2
- DVD Player
Stuff that goes to standby without an off option (short of pulling the plug)Yes, they're complaining about gas prices. It's a thing that Americans do to reassure the rest of the world that the US population has a handle on economics, foreign policy, that they do realise there are 'other' countries, and would those countries please take a few minutes off their famine, war and pestilence to see to the important things in life, like providing their one natural resource at cut price to feed the poor starving SUV's of New Hampshire.
Wow. Just wow.
I know that we're not the most loved nation on the planet, but to say that we should all be protesting famine instead of gas prices is sort of comparing apples to oranges. Do I wish that we had decent public transit? You bet your ass I do, but which is prone to happen faster: affordable gasoline or the creation and implementation of a nation-wide public transit solution?
Besides, caring about domestic gasoline prices doesn't mean that we don't care about famine, was, pestilence, and death (I didn't want to leave out a horseman) outside of our borders. Personal concern and global concern are not mutually exclusive nor have they ever been.
Besides, high gas prices hurt the folks barely scraping by a hell of a lot more than they hurt the folks with a fleet of cars.
As a rule of thumb, if it can be turned on/off with anything other than a physical "switch" it's almost definitely drawing power constantly. That applies to both remote turn-on (such as a remote control on a TV) or "soft" buttons, such as the button on the front of the PS2/Xbox.
Not that you didn't know, just putting it out there.
I've noticed that many European TV's that I've seen feature a hard "power-off" switch, unlike most US models. Leave the switch "on" and the TV works in standby just like any US model...but switching it off allows you to keep it from drawing power without resorting to pulling the plug. I liked that.
Generally I find pulling the plug to be a pain in the ass, which is why I generally don't. For instance, in my home entertainment center the plugs aren't even accessible individually; they're all inside a cabinet with just one power-strip cable coming out. Looked nicer that way, pleased the wife. But that means I have no way to "unplug" individual components.
I'd really like to see some legislation requiring hard "power-off" switches on all consumer electronics, preferably in an easily accessible location (front or side). I think people would be surprised how much energy it would save.
EDIT: Also, I have to say that was some Grade-A vitriol there Fawkes.
As long as we have affordable gasoline, there will never be much of any incentive to implement decent public transit solutions. The two are damn-near mutually exclusive.
yeah, i know. The only solution that i see is powerbars with switches.
Except that's what the chip on your shoulder is saying, not what I was saying. I didn't say you had to protest anything. In fact, you could all just shut up and take a little inconvenience, and everyone else would be quite happy.
And yes, it is comparing apples to oranges, because when - and I'll give you this - some citzens of the world's most affluent and luxurious nation complain about what is, per capita, one of the cheapest prices per gallon in the world, you want to make sure you have the apples, because when you lob them at the protesters, you want it to hurt.
PS I'd like to point out, as I've had to a few times before, that I am actually half-American, lived in the States for a while, and have great fondness for some parts of the US. This doesn't preclude me (and YOU as well, because I also know the only people who hate Americans more than the Arab street are other Americans who disagree with them) from wanting to smack those who indulge in self-centered, oblivious idiocy like this. The real question should be, why aren't you shouting louder about it? You know complaining about gas prices ranks right up there with Dubya and Intelligent Design on the world's Stupid Shit That We Wish The US Didn't Do list, right?
You want it to"hurt" so you make lame sweeping generalizations and bring up unrelated subjects in an attempt to dismiss the subject and take the moral high ground?
This is a boycott being organized by people on Myspace and Facebook. I kind of doubt there's a ton of SUV drivers from New Hampshire involved. You're not throwing apples, you're throwing apple pies. The result of which is, not only do they not hurt, but you look like a clown.
That being said, this is a dumb idea. But it's a dumb because it isn't going to change anything and is basically just a giant waste of time. Not because there are people in the world that are suffering and abloo abloo abloo.