Yes, here we are again. My inbox is filling up with those e-mails from friends, family, acquaintances, people I barely know ... almost every mailing list I'm on has forwarded one on to me: "Stick It Up Their @$$ Day" and other like appellations. For one day, we won't buy gasoline. Nations will tremble. Oil company executives will cower under their desks. The heavens will ring with the anguished cries of the Middle Eastern oil barons. And the price of gas will instantly halve.
As much of an idealist as I am, get fricking real, people.
I get gas about once every two weeks, once a week if I've done a lot of driving. Does this mean that I'm boycotting the oil companies the other 13 days?
Yeah, OK, maybe if everyone, absolutely everyone in America refrained from refueling (this includes the truckers who bring those frozen pizzas to your grocery stores so you don't have to get up off your ass and make some decent food yourself, and who bring you your mail every day), it might cause a hiccup that they would notice. But it would be nicely offset by the rise in gas sales the week leading up to and the week following it.
A finer example of slacktivism I can hardly envision. It accomplishes absolutely nothing, but makes you feel good about doing it.
You really want to stick it to the oil companies? You really want to complain about the obscene price gouging, the positively criminal level of profiteering?
Get off your ass. Walk. Wipe the cobwebs off that bike, pump up the tires and get riding. Carpool to work. Telecommute. Combine errands into one trip. Decide if you really have to run down to Circle K for a stick of butter. Ride the fricking bus, ferchrissake!
Get rid of that stupid SUV that you never actually use for its intended purpose (even though if you did use most of the newer ones for that intended purpose, they'd fail miserably) and buy a hybrid or a SmartCar. Find ways to save electricity. Etc., etc.
Basically, use less oil over the long term. One day isn't going to accomplish diddly. But a long-term drop in consumption will serve two purposes: It'll make the point that the stuff costs too much, and it'll slow consumption so that the day is delayed when we totally run out; plus, we'll all be in a slightly better position when it finally does.
Gawd, people are stupid.
2 comments:
What do you have against frozen pizzas?
*giggle*
AB-so-LUTE-ly nothing. I think they're yummy! But it is kind of a lazy culinary option. That's what I like so much about them.
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