Petrol Boycott

[EricL]

Recieved this email this morning.

Some places in Glasgow are selling it at £1.14.

It is getting ridiculous. Especially when you factor in the enormous profits the oil companies are making at our expense.

"See what you think and pass it on if you agree with it

We are hitting £106.9 a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with
paying £1.10 a litre. Philip Hollsworth offered this good idea:

This new idea makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the 'don't buy petrol on a certain day'
campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just
laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to hurt ourselves by
refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a
problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan
that can really work.

Please read it and join in!

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think
that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take aggressive action to
teach them that BUYERS control the market place not sellers. With the price
of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only
way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is if we hit someone
in the pocket by not purchasing their Petrol! And we can do that WITHOUT
hurting ourselves. Here's the idea:

For the rest of this year DON'T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest oil
companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP.

If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce their
prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow
suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of Esso and
BP petrol buyers. It's really simple to do!!

Now, don't wimp out on me at this point... keep reading and I'll explain how
simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each of you send it to at
least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at least ten more
(300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth
generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If
those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then
30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further,
you guessed it... ..

THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all.(and not buy
at ESSO/BP) How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out
to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could
conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! Acting together we can
make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on.

PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE RANGE

It's easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your petrol
at Shell, Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons Jet etc., i.e., boycott BP and
Esso"

bump

Boycott to lower fuel prices? What a load of old rubbish - who are the self-centred idiots who write this stuff? £1.14 per litre is WAY too cheap already - it should cost much much more to internalise all the environmental damage caused by oil extraction and use and the other externalities such as displacement of indigenous peoples, for which you conveniently don't have to pay.

You do not need a car unless you're a farmer in the middle of nowhere. Get a bike, use public transport and join a car-share scheme or use a taxi when there's no viable alternative. That'll stop dependence on those villains in oil-companies, get you fitter and more socially-conscious and help reduce global warming to boot.

It has been pointed out to me that Sainsburys actually use BP's fuel, so I think its abit pointless!

'You do not need a car unless you're a farmer in the middle of nowhere. Get a bike, use public transport and join a car-share scheme or use a taxi when there's no viable alternative.'

I'm glad you never lived in a rural area and need to use your car to get your kids to the doctor.

I'd love to see you cycling them there in the middle of a gale with 80mph winds, with blowing snow and sleet, in the dark on a single-tracked road or to get home from your 14-hour shift at your manual labour job like my husband.

How about your shopping. You know, for food?

Shocker! There's no supermarket delivery in many rural areas - it's too far out for it to be profitable.

In fact, there probably aren't any supermarkets.

Public transport, where you can get it, it extortionate and so limited, good luck getting a job to fit round it, especially during October-March when they run on a more limited schedule.

But somehow we're all supposed to move to cities so we can fit in with the lifestyle you and the government thinks is best for us.

LOL!

Oh, and yes, I'll give up our car when Gordon Brown abolishes the ECGD.

People using their cars is a literal drop in the ocean compared to the environmental damage caused by projects abroad his government supports.

It is £1.16/litre of diesel just outside Dunoon.

Head up to Strachur and watch the prices climb.

Wouldn't be so bad if you didn't just know the bulk of it is lining Brown's coffers.

Also, many vital industries, such as delivery industries, rely on petrol products to bring you and me food and necessary supplies.

Even public transport.

"You do not need a car unless you're a farmer in the middle of nowhere. Get a bike, use public transport and join a car-share scheme or use a taxi when there's no viable alternative. That'll stop dependence on those villains in oil-companies, get you fitter and more socially-conscious and help reduce global warming to boot."
The village where I live now has a bus service once every two hours (instead of the 4 an hour there was previously) running from 10am until 6pm. It would take me three buses to get to the school where I work (8 miles away). I'm not sure how a taxi is a better option but I'd be very lucky to get one to come from town to pick me up and take me to work. A bike? wonder where I could put my books and laptop never mind the huge hills I need to cycle up. There are no longer any shops as the last one closed before Christmas but on the bright side Tesco will deliver (Sainsburys and Waitrose won't)

It's 1.19 per litre in quite a few places down here - I am boycotting BP and Esso but only because they are not the cheapest.

daddster errrrrr...please explain why only farmers in the middle of nowhere need a car?????? I really don't understand that one at all

I did have to take a taxi into town once.

In order to access many forms of medical treatment, people out here have to travel near to Glasgow via ferry and then train and then a bus to the hospital if they are using public transport - it takes roughly 2 hours at a minimum.

It cost £16 to go the 13 miles to the ferry terminal.

I did have to take a taxi into town once.

In order to access many forms of medical treatment, people out here have to travel near to Glasgow via ferry and then train and then a bus to the hospital if they are using public transport - it takes roughly 2 hours at a minimum.

It cost £16 to go the 13 miles to the ferry terminal.

Sorry, Expat - have to part company with you there.

Over-reliance on cars favour the rich over the poor - if you ever truly needed a car, then those who could not afford one would be utterly disenfranchised. By perpetuating that myth and clinging on to private cars, you are creating social exlusion.

As I said, fair enough if you are a farmer and have to live out in a field somewhere rather than in a town or village, but there are very few places in the UK where car ownership is "necessary".

I did grow up in a small village in a rural area and we managed to get groceries without a car (my Dad used our one car to drive to work, which he didn't need to, but they were less enlightened times in the 1970s and 80s when company cars were regarded as a good idea). We had a small grocery shop as well as a bread-van, fish-van and butchers-van all visiting our village (all of whom stopped as supermarkets took over). It's only because so many people have got cars and petrol is so cheap (oh yes it is - more people have cars now than ever) that people drive miles to supermarkets and village shops and other local traders lose trade and close down.

Any guesses why the public transport services have been scaled back in rural areas?

You don't need a car to get your kid to a doctor - if it's an emergency, you call the ambulance. If it's not, you can call a taxi. If you're disabled, you use dial-a-ride. How do you think people who cannot drive manage?

For the rare occasion that a car is a necessity (and I cannot think of one), the community can club together and join a car share scheme.

'By perpetuating that myth and clinging on to private cars, you are creating social exlusion.'

ROTFLMFAO!

What planet do you live on?

Not around here, obviously!

Even the Polish seasonal workers use CARS around here.

Because otherwise, good luck getting to work!

'you call the ambulance. If it's not, you can call a taxi. If you're disabled, you use dial-a-ride. How do you think people who cannot drive manage?'

Haahaahaaa. I'm really glad the family of the cancer suffer in Colintraive who died waiting for the limited ambulance service in this area aren't reading this.

Do you really think taxis run 24 hours/day around here?

Dial a ride doesn't exist here.

People who can't drive round here have mostly moved into town.

Oh, yes, let's all club together with the 50%+ of homes which are unoccupied most of the year. I'm sure the phantom car will be here to take me to get my shopping.

No van here. Like it or not, or for whatever reason, we're not the reason they're no longer here now and we have to go into town to get food.

It is what it is now, and what it is is a rip-off thanks to Brown's policies.

I would guess that the cancer sufferer in Colintraive wasn't well enough to drive, so even if he owned a car it wouldn't have saved him?

You acknowledge yourself that (for whatever reason) public transport has been cut back, village shops have closed and meat/fish/veg/whatever vans are few and far between now.

When you grew up you may have had all these things and been able to manage but they are not around now in a lot of places and alot of people in rural areas need cars.

My dp has a round trip of 40 miles a day to work, working nights from 10 til 6. There is no public transport at that time of night and cycling that distance, in the dark, on a route that includes dual carriageway and some seriously steep hills is totally unfeasible.

was this email sent out by the marketing dept at Shell by any chance?

The reason public transport has been cut back in my area is because the small family run bus companies that ran reliable services have gone out of business because of high fuel prices.

daddster we cant survive without a car. well technically, we could, but then dh would be reliant on hospital transport to get him to and from his specialist hospital on clinic days, and they use much larger vechiles than we have.

Sure, Pesha, I acknowledge the circular cause and effect which has to be broken, but WHY do you live 20 miles from your dp's work in a remote area with poor transport links (or alternatively why choose a job which makes you dependent on a car)?

'but WHY do you live 20 miles from your dp's work in a remote area with poor transport links (or alternatively why choose a job which makes you dependent on a car)?'

We do it because we could no longer afford rental housing closer to work + council tax and bills.

Are you working poor? It's very hard for the working poor to come by affordable rent housing near many areas where work is plentiful, available, concentrated.

Socialised housing is at a huge premium - you must be a real emergency, i.e. homeless -- to get housed and before you say, 'Get HB', try finding a landlord who will take DSS.

The cancer sufferer was a woman, FWIW. She was having breathing problems and as the hospital is located 'across the water' and the ferries stop running at 10.30PM - it was midnight - they called hte ambulance because they're the ones that can use the emergency ferry or call for a chopper.

surely Peter can just ride pillion whilst you cycle him to hospital, misdee, whilst pregnant, of course?

as for your other three children, well, erm. maybe strap the youngest on your back and the other two can tandem it.

surely you don't need a car!?

We are in the middle of nowhere, and diesel is now £1.20 a litre here. If we lived in town I would agree that we should use the car less, but many people live in areas without public transport and these prices are becoming crippling, particularly if you also factor in the cost of off-grid fuel such as LPG or oil. There is supposed to be a rural sustainability agenda, that car fuel at such enormous prices is laughing in the face of (please forgive the outrageous word order).

Because there are also very few jobs around here which pay well. He has worked there for 10 years now, having lived much closer previously, and would be hard pushed to find a job that pays aswell any closer.

I have lived in this town for about 10 years, my dc are at school here, friends here etc and he moved in with me.

I am in a housing association house so moving options are pretty limited, I am actually looking for a swap atm but its not as easy as picking a house I like and moving there. (And the town he works in is a dump anyway!! )

Life really isn't as simple as you seem to think.