Beating the Dead Gas Strike Horse
edit in 2007: This is the blog for the comic strip Man-Man, in case you’re wondering. It’s got an obscenely high Google rank for “gas strike” for some bizarre reason. So, er, read the comic. Please!
Got another “Gas Strike” e-mail from a friend today. Sent her over to this link, and replied (as I have done before) thusly:
You’re an awesome person for doing this, but I’d love it if you’d read this and forward it back to the Gas Strike people.
I just had this massive … I wouldn’t call it an argument, but a vigorous debate … with an old friend a couple of months ago on this subject. I love the sentiment – I’m obviously no pal of Big Oil – but I can’t stand it when people who drive cars go through these freak-outs and think that if we don’t buy gas for one day, suddenly the oil companies will all go OH MY GOD and learn the error of their ways.
Not gonna happen.
“Gas strikes” don’t do anything. Really. I actually suspect that they’re started by gas companies to give well-meaning consumers the feeling they’re “taking action” – a big placebo to keep people from actually doing what would REALLY solve gas price problems:
Not driving.
Seriously.
I don’t own a car. I take great pride in not owning a car. I’d go as far as to say that not owning a car is now part of Who I Am, and while it’s not easy sometimes, by God, it’s satisfying.
Honestly, the gas companies don’t make their money off you and your Echo. They make their money off the transport industry; they make their money off two-car families where Mom and Dad can’t get their shit together enough to actually SHARE a car, they make their money off people that drive 5 km to work every day instead of riding a bike or taking the bus. The “gas strike” won’t do squat. Because the day after the “gas strike” people will get BACK in their cars, smug with the satisfaction that they’ve stuck it to The Man, and they’ll go buy gas.
You can’t control the gas companies.
You CAN control yourselves.
Don’t “gas strike.” De-gas your lifestyle. Sell your SUV and get a smart car or a hybrid. Hell, sell your smart car and hybrid and buy a kick-ass bike and a bus pass. Get up earlier so you can drive your spouse to work and the kids to school. Tell Junior that he can danged well bike to soccer practice, or form a pick-up league in the neighbourhood, because you’re not driving him 10 km just to kick a ball around for an hour and a half. Rent a movie instead of driving to the theatre. Head over to your neighbour’s place for a card game instead of driving 50 km to see friends three towns over.
Carpool.
Get a CommunAuto membership.
Go for walks.
Spend more money in local shops (and walk there) instead of spending your time and your gas to drive all the way to the mall. You’d be surprised at how much you’re spending to get to where you “save” money.
Join a cycling lobby group and push City Hall to install safe, dedicated bike lanes for alternative transportation.
The “gas strike” is a sham. You might as well walk up to a gas pump and give it the finger. You might feel satisfied having vented your frustration, but what good have you done? None, really. The oil companies have plenty of storage space, and plenty of time. If you don’t change how you LIVE, you’re just going to buy that gas tomorrow or the day after, and your “gas strike” will amount to nothing.
So if you have what it takes to go a day without buying gas, maybe it’s time to think about taking the next step, digging deep and seeing if you have the dedication to make a REAL change. To go a LIFE without buying gas.
If half the people in North America don’t buy gas for one day, jack shit will happen.
If half the people in North America start buying half as much gas for the REST OF THEIR LIVES, things are going to change big time, and in a good way.
Sorry about the rant. It’s just … good effort wasted, you know? Let’s start focusing less on the Grand Gesture protests, and let’s start focusing more on those quiet, relentless, little things we can do every day that make the world a little bit better, one drop of unbought gasoline at a time.
May 9th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Listen dude,
I’m all for people walking and what not. Not only is it better on the pocketbook, but it’s also better for the environment. But consider this, there was a, “gas strike,” back in 1997. And unfortunately, your wrong. The, “gas strike,” that went on in 1997 caused a drop in fuel prices by 30 cents almost overnight. Now if you wanna tell me that fuel dropping that much per gallon is, “jack shit,” well, that’s flat out stupid. In fact that’s a lack of studying up on something before you write it. In fact, if you think about it, even on a fuel efficient car like a Honda that only has a 11-12 gallon tank, that’s over three dollars in savings on gas per tank. Doesn’t seem like much. But it is something. And if these, “fuel strikes,” keep happening and the gas companies kept their prices down, thats almost 75 bucks a year. Pretty good I’d say. Maybe you think they don’t work, but frankly, 30 cents a gallon is what most people would probably call, “working,” in this occasion.
May 10th, 2007 at 1:15 am
Er, dude. I did study up before writing that. And using the miracle of Internet technology, you can too:
Research.
That took Google and about 15 seconds.
Or, if you prefer, the About.com section on “Gas Outs,” which is one of their top 25 urban myths.
And here too.
And this, from a site about stopping junk mail misinformation.
I’m not sure where you picked up the 1997 myth, but Yahoo! Answers and MySpace (the top results for “gas strike 1997 30 cents” in a quick search) aren’t exactly rock-solid places to get your information from. If a “gas-out” had really resulted in pump prices being lowered, don’t you think a single reputable source would have reported on it? That would be big news. Huge. Freakin’ massive. It would still be talked about today as a bastion of the power-of-the-people influence on major corporations.
But nobody reported on it because it is something somebody read on TEH INTARWEB and never really happened. The “1997″ thing is a new twist on an old idiocy that started before… according to your MySpace page as linked… you were even born.
(Not buying gas won’t fight terrorism either, just in case you were wondering.)
May 14th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Nothing but complaints and impractical solutions; Did I just complain about the complainers?
Solution: Targeted Strike
Stop buying gas from a single company (Chevron,Shell, BP, Exxon, ext).
This is something practical that everyone can do. While we can’t globally hurt all the oil producers we can choose one company to hurt.
May 15th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
hey maybe it wont work, maybe it will have no effect at all, the point is to maybe show your “big oil” friend that we don’t need to buy gas every day.
or the point could be, maybe, JUST MAYBE as Americans we can still Exercise our right as American people to protest the things we don’t agree with, especially now with the internet as a WAY OF COMING TOGETHER!
Facts or no facts how does it feel to know you sounding pretty smart about all this, amongst other things, makes no difference. YOU CAN’T CHANGE SHIT!
Doesn’t feel very awesome does it. but its ok im sure you’ll continue to discourage what might be effective. By scanning optimism and countering it with your so called facts, from your assumed “rock solid sources” with witch you tell people in-turn not to trust.
Back any animal into a corner and their gonna talk, pay or lobby their way out of anything threatening them, you think bush is gonna let anything that effects gas prices negatively into the press. or leave it there for people to dwell on?
Im not for or against bush, but I do know we as American people haven’t been getting the truth from our own government about much of anything, let alone from YOU.
who are you anyway Man-man?
blades you got it, but we should focus on the imported oil companies.
so matt while you “suspect” oil companies are starting mass strikes upon themselves, how about tryin to be an american and help unite, as apposed to dividing us in such a time of dire need!
peace!
May 15th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
That is great advise but what about all the people that live 10 or 15 miles from a town or that live in towns so small they are forced to drive 20 or 30 miles to get what they need. I live 8 miles from the nearest town so I can’t exactly ride bike to the store to get frozen goods in the middle of the summer. Also in some parts of the USA it gets kinda cold in the winter like here (minnesota). There is no way in hell that someone is going to bike to work thru 8 inches of snow or -40 degree weather. I agree something needs to change and strikes won’t work. Since gas prices have gone up I have stopped driving as much and started to think about ways to spend less on gas. Lets see how many different ideas can come up with to use less gas and make big oil take a hit where it hurts their pocketbooks. All I saw with todays supposed strike was gas prices going from 3.00 to 3.20 and just as many ppl at the pumps as normal.
May 17th, 2007 at 4:03 am
I agree dowg, i live in northern utah where conditions can be similar. unless you have sub zero gear, snowshoes, and enough supplies to last you till you get to where your going. (defeating the purpose of venturing off on foot for supplies).
i rollerblade, and ride a bike. but mostly for exersise and recreation, that all changes for me today. I walked home from work tonight, its spring fair conditions. it felt good, it took me 2 hours, but it felt good.
now that we’ve seen the gas strike backfired, do we know the reasons?
is it perhaps we did take a chunk out of some profits even if only for one day? did opeck get us back today because they could?
not that its “rock solid” or anything, but there were some estimates that we COULD HAVE DONE about 3 billion in oil profit damage…
(ha ha lol is right, we cant even stay away from the pump for one day!)
although this recent strike had an effect, it seemed more of a defect.
gas prices jumped 20 cents overnight… somehow i told ya so doesn’t lay right with me. our move was anticipated and capitalized on. (thanx pescimist) they waited for the day after, our un-organized plan ran out of gas, then raised it 20 cents!! they’re sayin on the news here (what mr man matt shepherd would classify as a reputable source) most gas stations are profiting between 9-19 cents per gallon, the business profiting 9 cents is struggling, and the price jack came from “big oil” yeah so opeck settled for new bentlys on the 15th, instead of mclarens for the kids, oohhh we really hurt them huh?
no in point of fact there is no way we could hurt all the major oil companies at the same time by throwing together an un-organized “peacefull protest” in a months time. its like throwing pebbles at a pyramid.
we’ll chalk this one up, and call it our warning blow, but if we as american people are gonna get serious about controlling the price of “tea” in america then we need to stop discouraging each other….
we need to stop calling gas protests flukes, ESPECIALLY if we dont even own a car to put gas in.
seriously, if your one of the fortunate, who live close enough, or in a climate permitting region to ride your bike to and from school and work; GREAT you’ve solved your gas problem, let us concentrate on ours.
we can make a difference, we may not be able to get the truth out of our government, but we can at least be honest with ourselves. What the hell is america known for? or are we turning into
the divided states of embarrasment? we stand up for what the f*#% we believe in. we dont lay down like pussies! well i dont…
as i read you all blogging, organization, strategy, uniting against one company at a time is the best idea yet but,,, we probably shouldn’t hurt OUR gas companies? the targets should be the foriegn companies!!!
i haven’t read much on it yet but what i did read was good stuff
if your like like me and you get a kick out of people’s feet in their own mouth, you should check out this link. http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/nogas.asp
read how hard they clown on gas outs and how ineffective they are, they have 2 examples of an email that went around. a myspace bullitin, which i posted and re-posted from my email address also many times, then theres this all caps 3rd grade version of a gas pump hate letter altered from 2000 all the way to 2006, i’ve never seen nor would i re-post it.
this page says last updated on april 28 2007, so less than a month ago
then to top it all off at the bottom they list their sources, ALL OF WHICH ARE FROM 1999!!! what decade are we in folks????
it gets better, if i could i would copy and paste for you, but of course it wont let me.
It continues to say how a gas boycott means we refuse to use their product till they make changes. their the ones calling it a boycott. and our one day attempt “sputtered, choked, and died”. (in 1999)
then; “the independent service station operators, who have the least say in setting gasoline prices. (independents are at the mercy of a very volatile oil market and operate on thin profit margins, and even a single days disruption of supply and demand can wipe out many days’ worth of hard-earned profits.) as such, the “gas-out” (they call it at this point) is a punch on the nose delivered to the wrong person.”
hey if ya ask me its the only person we can reach, lucky they don’t get a punch in the nose right? if that service station loses many days of hard earned profits because “a single days disruption”, it effects “big oil” right?
that would explain one of the next quotes on their page as follows;
read carefully! here comes the foot.
“A planned nationwide boycott protesting the high price of gasoline didn’t have much effect on local gas stations.”
“friends, fellow americans” we poked a giant, gas jumped 20 cents. we effected something…..had we gotten even partial cooperation, who knows maybe they would’ve seen we can
WTF hey matt shepherd a mans – man i followed your cool little links and did what you call research. is this your idea of “rock solid sources”?
hope not
Nate London. Ogden Ut. mick_muir@yahoo.com/myspace
feedback anyone?
this is where most of it stemmed from (nothin personal)
http://www.man-man.org/blog/?p=442
May 17th, 2007 at 5:46 am
First:
Dude, I can see that you’re very sincere and really passionate about this, but I can’t follow what you’re saying half the time. I know the Internet doesn’t always put a high premium on spelling, grammar and logical thought, but incoherency is not your friend when it comes to arguing facts.
Second:
You’re wrong.
Both in your understanding of the original post and in your understanding of, well, the facts of the word in general and the oil industry in particular.
There’s this weird cascading overwrought freak-out in these responses. The initial (strongly worded) suggestion is that people should cut gas consumption as much as possible as the only effective way of controlling how much they pay for gas. That’s all. I never suggested that people walk through sub-Arctic temperatures in Utah.
I’m running out of analogies. It’s like seeing a morbidly obese person look at themselves in the mirror and saying “DAMN those fast food joints for making me so fat! We should all not eat fast food on Friday!” and then stocking up with two dozen cheeseburgers on Thursday to tide him over. Sure, he doesn’t eat a dozen cheeseburgers on Friday, but as long as the net overall consumption of cheeseburgers is the same, the fast food place doesn’t care when he buys them.
And then when somebody says “say, maybe you should just eat fewer cheeseburgers overall,” freaking out and suggesting that it’s the stinking foreign cheeseburgers that are the real problem.
Look, if not buying cheeseburgers on Friday helps you feel like you’re “sticking it to the man,” then go to town. Congratulate yourself on striking a decisive blow in the War On Cheeseburgers.
Do a little cheeseburger dance.
Just don’t try to convince anybody that you’re actually doing anything, because as long as you keep shovelling in the cheeseburgers, regardless of whether you’re buying them at McDonald’s or Wendy’s or Burger King, they’re going to keep making money.
And you’re going to keep getting fatter.
Of course you’re going to have to use a car to get to work if you live ten miles from work. It’s not rocket science to figure out that when it’s minus forty and the Ice Wolves are outside, a vehicle might be handy.
But if you own a manly 4×4, what about trading down to an Echo or a Smart Car? Less hairy-chested, maybe, but also a lot more practical and fuel-efficient.
What about (gasp) carpooling?
What if (horrors) you talked to a neighbour about pooling resources for weekly grocery trips and whatnot?
Or if you live in a city (HANG ON TIGHT), public transit?
It’s easy to say “Hey, I’m not going to buy gas for 24 hours! THAT WILL SHOW THOSE ARABS I MEAN BUSINESS!!11!!” and then go back to maximum comfort for minimal effort. But real life change is hard. Thinking about how you live and how you can make actual changes is hard.
And that’s where most people stop.
I’m saying we can all do better. Myself included.
Third:
Going off the rails about my slapdash research without providing any better research at all makes you look like — well, like a dunderhead.
Snopes is still better research than anyone else has presented. Because the people railing about how unAmerican I am have yet to produce any evidence whatsoever — other than MySpace pages and theories that stack up with “9/11 was Michael Moore’s fault!” — of how in God’s name this “gas strike” thing works. (hint: that’s because it doesn’t work, hence no facts. Just like the fabled “Proof of the Existence of Santa” that my goddaughter keeps threatening to produce hasn’t materialized yet.)
Snopes links to old e-mails because the new “gas strike” schemse are just like the old ones. Bluster from people who would rather spit in the ocean than open an umbrella. For God’s sake, look at the DATE OF THE ORIGINAL POST. August 20, 2005. Do you remember gas prices going down in 2005? Do you even remember doing this in 2005? Because people have been doing “gas strikes” for two decades now.
Now people are inventing fairy tales about things that never happened in 1997 to justify the latest round of back-patting, feel-good idiocy.
Fourth:
Want a helpful suggestion? Okay. Read slow and careful:
You can lower gas prices. Mainly by not being an idiot.
And more reasons why gas strikes don’t work. From, well, a reputable source. That uses complete sentences. And, y’know, facts.
Lord.
That burning feeling in your skull is thinking. And I know it hurts real bad but sometimes you have to bear down and ride through the pain.
It’s what a real American would do.
May 17th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Personally, I like gas strikes.
It means I don’t have to wait in line to fill up that day.
Gas strikes are really wonderful things beloved by people who have no idea about the economics of the situation. The gas and oil industry is a multi-trillion dollar industry. One quarter’s revenue from one company last year topped $54 Billion dollars. Since the “gas strikes” are hardly well coordinated and consist of maybe a few hundred people saying “I will buy no gas today!” even if they lived here in California and pumped their hummers full of premium, skipping out on your daily fill up means you impact their revenue by $40,000. Lot of money right?
It’s .0000074% of their quarterly revenue.
Folks, they make around $68,000 every SECOND. Your “gas strike” doesn’t even register as an accounting error.
Let’s put this in simple economic terms.
High Supply + High Demand = High Prices.
Low Supply + High Demand = High Prices.
High Supply + Low Demand = Low Prices.
Low Supply + Low Demand = Low Prices.
(see a trend?)
August 18th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
what were gas prices in may of 2007? $3.07
gas prices now? $2.44
The national gasoline average is now about a $1.50 below the price this time last year. Despite the increase in price, diesel fuel is now $2.45 below this time last year.
consumerreports.org
results of the newly introduced hybrids? the changes in office? new alternate fuel sources?
one huge fact i do know, without having to do research, i have more oil rigg buddies than i can count who are outta work. riggs just stopped dead in thier tracks!
go figure.