Anyone besides me boycotting BP?
 

I wouldnt buy a thing from bp..they have to much anyway.

I drove an extra 2 blocks to get my gas today...just to avoid giving my money to BP. The company executives should be charged with some type of crime.

I watched a news piece the other day about boycotting BP. What's interesting is this: the gas stations are owned by local small individuals (not BP). The gas that's sold may or may not come from BP. If you go elsewhere that gas could be from BP. Additionally if you buy anything that has plastic on it, in it or around it, it could very well be from BP.

I think, however, that boycotting the local BP station doesn't hurt BP but hurts that small independent owner.

Food for thought?

If more people would sell their cars and explore alternate modes of getting around we wouldn't be having this problem to begin with.

We are a -really- lazy culture full of really lazy people.

I boycotted Exxon (and still do) and now, BP (and probably always will now).
There are very few BP stations where I live, and every time I pass one these days, not one single person is gassing up there. Seems like I am not the only one.

Nope..

But I don't think I've ever used a BP in my life...

My ex husband was a mechanic... He told me that their gas wasn't good for cars.. Being that I know nothing ( besides a weird dream of stripping down and rebuilding a 66 Ford Falcon Wagon) have no interest in learning about cars.. I trust a professional opionion...

I try to use local mom and pops when I can and Kum and Go's when I can't.. (Local Chain)

while I agree that alternative (to oil) transportation is one solution to our over dependency on oil, some of us with disabilities have limited choices about transportation, and are not "lazy." even electric cars, with small footprints, are difficult for some as they are too small and entry/exit is difficult. and, yeah, the horse and buggy's not an option (for ME).

Linus - I worked for BP for many years. What you said above is correct. The BP branded stations are owned by local business people and individuals. Its usually a franchise. You are hurting the owner, not BP. BP, years ago, bought up a shit load of gas stations, fixed them up and sold them (I was part of the rebranding and fix up around the country). Then these stations were sold in blocks of 7 or 8 to local business groups/investors. Then these stations would be rebranded under the name they wanted. But the deal was they had to buy BP gas.

So it is no longer possible to tell who has BP gas and who doesn't. So while you pass by the BP branded station and hurt the individual owner, you are going down the street to another station and still purchasing BP gas. Boycotting BP will do absolutely no good. Even if you see a tanker truck with the name of the gas station on it, it is still no guarantee that it is NOT BP gasoline. Pretty much they have infiltrated the entire nation and convenience store network. BP also bought up the whole state of FLorida and made deals to supply to Florida stations. Now this was a few years ago and things might have changed, but somehow I doubt it. So if you live in Florida, I am about 90% sure you have BP gas in your tank.

Local individual gas station owners do well to make about a dime profit per gallon. They make their money on the hyper marked up sodas, chips and candy.

Oh and BP built the Alaska pipeline. And they don't just own gas. You have BP products in your house that you don't even know about.

So go ahead and boycott but it won't do any good. BP has a strong presence in the gasoline market in the US. Think of all the multinational corporation horror story and conspiracy theories you have ever heard of and then apply them to BP.

Rufus

I was thinking in terms of public/mass transit, not in terms of smart cars and hybrids and such.

Of course I realise that you (like everybody else) are basically at the mercy of the city/town you live in when it comes to this - but I really do see taking the bus as the best option for just about everybody.

Most places I have been (even the crappy town of 30k people that I live in currently) have accessible public transit. If a town doesn't have accessible transit (I'm talking about buses that kneel, have ramps, have seats that fold back so wheelchairs can fit, q-straint systems in place, etc) the town will -get- accessible transit if enough people make enough of a fuss.

Of course it is less convenient than owning a car, but it's certainly not unmanageable. People (in urban areas) who drive are CHOOSING to drive, they are certainly not forced to do so. I haven't had a car in about 8 years and I've gotten by just fine.

(Everything I said above applies only to people living in urban and suburban areas. Of course I get that if you live in a rural area there is no public transit. )

Global 500 2009: Top Performers:

ALL of them are oil companies

1. Exxon
2. Gazprom
3. Royal Dutch Shell
4. Chevron
5. BP
6. Petrobras

followed by

7. Microsoft
8. General Electric
9. Nestle
10. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu...its/index.html

boycotting big oil is like pissing in the wind......it gets all over you when you do...and as someone pointed out it hurts small business folks and has no impact at all on any big oil company

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Concerning selling your car...........yeah right.....how am I gonna get to work...........lets see it would take me about 1.5 hours one way by bus......it takes 20 minutes by car.

I do however take public transit or carpool about 90% of the time when I go into the City (San Francisco) from home (Oakland). I do drive the 2 miles to the BART station. If I know I am going to be past midnight I have to take my car (or carpool if possible) as BART stops running at midnight.

When I lived in the City I rarely ever drove my truck.

How about those folks who live where no public transit exists?

Better yet why not put the screws to your government and change our energy policy.......electric cars, bio-diesel would be a first start.

I used to bike to and from work when I lived in Toronto (from downtown to York University -- taking mostly Yonge Street and dealing will all sorts of traffic). It was an hour and 20 to the university and 45 min back (all downhill back).

To this day I do not have a driver's license. I've never had one. And I am now forced to get one because this country lives by the car and dies by the car for the sake of convenience of the individual and not society (IMO).

Lazy people? Seriously? We have a governor who touts himself as "green", then slashes public transportation budgets every year - green my ass. State and federal governments funnel money in to highways and strip it from transit. Can't use mass transit if it isn't there. We had to drive in to the City last night; I'd love to have taken the ferry, but the ferry doesn't run at night. When I lived in LA, there were lots of buses, but the schedules were fucked up. My 75 minute bus commute became a 10 minute drive when I got a car. Don't even get me started on my years of commuting by bus in college, where - in both directions - the bus I needed to transfer to came through the intersection five minutes before the bus I started on. 90 minutes on the bus, 30 minutes in a car. I had to do that bus shit five days a week for two years until I could afford a car.

One a personal level, the area where I live has decent mass transit, but it's a mile up a steep hill to my home from the nearest bus stop. From that bus stop, it's only two miles to the area where I do most of my shopping. Not wanting to tote bags of dog food and groceries and supplies on to a bus for a two mile ride and then carry them on foot up a steep mile isn't lazy.

BTW, these are all in urban areas....