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chain emails and petrol! :-D

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I get a few rather annoying chain emails but today one of them got me thinking...is it possible to make a difference by sending it on?

it was something about the rising petrol prices and if we boycotted ESSO and BP we could make a diffrerence to the prices - so basically if we were to boycott the two major companies and only use Sainsburys, Tesco etc then the loss ESSO and BP are making would force them to cut their prices so everyone would compete with these new revised prices, so although for a few months you would still be paying huge amounts with Sainsburys, Tesco, Asda etc you wouldn't be any more worse off than if you continue to go with ESSO and BP

am I making sense? whilst this doesn't affect me and i dont really care coz i cannot drive and never will and still wont make a difference to the bus prices going up - would this kind of approach make any difference? and could we use a chain mail approach to sort out other problems with society? such as promoting certain charities or promoting volunteering? I know this has a very tenuous link with politics but the topic of petrol interested me and got me thinking that maybe knowing that within our lifetime we will run out of oil etc is it time to start looking at alternative ways of powering cars and machinery? maybe its better to look into it now before its too late?

I am feeling very philosophical today and hate it :D

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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    considering that chain main has been doing the rounds for at least a couple of years now, probly not

    plus most of the major supermarkets get their fuel from those two companies
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You should boycott Esso because of their attitude to the environment.

    BP are one of the better petrol companys. BP used to be British Petroleum, these days, it's Beyond Petroleum.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Boycotts worked with an Oil company before.

    You may recall Shell's plans to sink an old oil platform (Brent Spa?) were changed after Greenpeace started a campaign against them. There were boycotts of Shell stations around Europe and eventually they caved. Greenpeace hailed it as a victory.

    Of course, what Greenpeace didn't say was that the breakup of the platform actually cause more damage to the environment than the sinking would have...
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The boycott Esso campaign has been going on for years now. Like Fiend has said, the company's appalling environmental record should be all the reason one needs to give it a wide miss.

    But yes, boycotting other oil giants might force them to lower their prices a bit. Let's not forget that after the government they take by far the largest chunk of profit from the sale of a litre of petrol.

    It can be tricky for those living in cities to stick to supermarket petrol though- there isn't one for miles where I live.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote:
    It can be tricky for those living in cities to stick to supermarket petrol though- there isn't one for miles where I live.

    And given what a lot of people think about Tesco (corperate scumbags) the switch doesnt really work either.

    I know high oil prices are tough for some people, and that is unfair, but it also makes alternatives more profitable and therefore more likely to appear, which is good.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yeah I know... higher cost of petrol = fewer miles travelled & fewer Chelsea tractors sold.

    Not such a bad thing...
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote:
    Yeah I know... higher cost of petrol = fewer miles travelled & fewer Chelsea tractors sold.

    Not such a bad thing...

    Except that hasnt been the case so far, more 4x4's are being sold every year, God knows why though.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Just to inject a bit of pop psychology -

    for every person you lose because they are more expensive to run, you gain one, because they are more expensive to run.

    It's the usual chest puffing, halfwit social proofing that fucks up so many people and causes so much harm.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    People with far more money than sense I'm afraid.

    A friend of someone I know (both being 'high flying' city boys) has bought himself a Range Rover. The pointless beast does something like 7 miles to the gallon in city driving and the wanker in question finds it really amusing that the car consumes nearly half a tank every day just to commute from Sussex into London.

    Then again such problems would be solved if there was an extra congestion charge of £50 a day applied to 4 x 4s driven into or around London.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote:
    Then again such problems would be solved if there was an extra congestion charge of £50 a day applied to 4 x 4s driven into or around London.

    What I cant understand is how these cars even fit down half the roads in London, I panic fitting through gaps and my cars tiny.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote:
    Then again such problems would be solved if there was an extra congestion charge of £50 a day applied to 4 x 4s driven into or around London.

    Personally, I suspect that standing on the roof with a sniper rifle would be much more effective...
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote:
    People with far more money than sense I'm afraid.

    A friend of someone I know (both being 'high flying' city boys) has bought himself a Range Rover. The pointless beast does something like 7 miles to the gallon in city driving and the wanker in question finds it really amusing that the car consumes nearly half a tank every day just to commute from Sussex into London.

    Then again such problems would be solved if there was an extra congestion charge of £50 a day applied to 4 x 4s driven into or around London.

    Fuckin 4x4s not only do they use ridiculous amounts of resources, if one of them hits anything smaller (which is pretty much every other vehicle on the road) they'll come out with a couple of scratches and the other will be in 1000 pieces. They should seriously be illegal to be used for anything except what they were meant for.

    People driving them look like twats anyway, what's the point?
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