[Plantagenet]

OK, but if the evil oil companies don't lower the price of
gas because you pumped 6 gallons on "Gasoline Boycott Day"
we'll know who to blame.

[Ludi]

I can't remember the last time I drove, must be weeks ago. So, yay me, I boycotted gasoline.


Whoopdidoo!

[I_Like_Plants]

I've seen a few hybrids like the Priapus here in Alaska, but its still mostly the land of giant 4WD pick-ups. Seven months of snow and ice and -40 to -50 degree temps in the winter produce certain ineluctable requirements in a vehicle.

I'm surprised there are ANY. AK is not a fair-weather, warm, place like coastal CA here. There are vast areas of the US where the Prius makes sense, and a few where it does not. You don't need a huge pickup to do well in snow, some small cars do great too, but the Prius was never designed to do well in uber-cold temps like you get up there.

[birchm]

I haven't filled up in a couple weeks now. Haven't driven any, so there's no point.

[jupiters_release]

I spend at most $200/year on gasoline! YAY for NYC mass transit.

[Plantagenet]

I spend at most $200/year on gasoline! YAY for NYC mass transit.

Good for you. Can you arrange for the IRT to be extended a bit...say to Denver?

[pea-jay]

I spend at most $200/year on gasoline! YAY for NYC mass transit.

I probably spend the same on my station wagon and I live about 3000 miles too far west to use the NJTransit rail or PATH. YAY for my bike and small compact urban city

Seriously Jupiter, what are you doing with a car in the city and how much are you paying a year to park it?

When I lived in Chicago in the 1990s, I was car-free and my employer subsidized all but $35 of my CTA/PACE monthpass. My transportation related costs were a ridiculously tiny portion of my household budget.

BTW, in honor of gas boycott day tomorrow, I will drive to work and school for a change. May even top off the tank...

[fleutz]

Yesterday I didn't gas because bicycling was awesome 90 degrees and mostly sunny. Who needs gas ?

[killJOY]

I had nowhere to go yestedaym, except to the garden to plant potatoes.

If I had somewhere to go, I would have filled up just to piss off the clueless people who think this boycott means anything.

Today, they're all just gas pigs again.

[Newsseeker]

As ethanol pushed the price of goods up you might want to try a food boycott. That has about as good a chance of success.

[Pablo2079]

If they were able to organize a year boycott.... that might actually do something.

[Specop_007]

I saw that.

I'm normally not the downer type, but I think the majority of the folks behind it and participating are unclear on the concept.

Reminds me of how the druids of the dark ages use to throw maidens down a well in hopes of gaining magic powers.

Don't hold your breath.

Come to think of it....They did have overpopulation problems then either....

I see a correlation......

[eXpat]

Current prices of oil rising up prices of almost everything essential:

It’s not surprising, because since Bernanke took over the helm of the Federal Reserve, the growth rate of the US M3 money supply has expanded rapidly to a 13% annualized clip, just shy of a 30-year high, and up from 8% in March 2006. Much like the ECB, the Fed is expanding the M3 money supply to immunize the US economy and stock market from sharply higher prices of crude oil.
The rapid expansion of the US money supply has sent the US dollar to its lowest level in 26-years against the British pound, an 18-year low against the Australian dollar, a 30-year low against the Canadian dollar, and an all-time low against the Euro. So oil exporters are quick to dump the US dollar and convert into appreciating currencies after initially accepting payment in the greenback.
---The price of a bushel of corn is up about 50% since spring of last year, and has led to rising costs for other foods and meats, because corn is an essential part of the US food-supply chain. Farmers use corn to feed dairy cattle, poultry and other livestock. Corn-based syrups flavor sodas, and corn oils are used in a variety of foods. Other pressures driving up the price of food include higher fuel costs, from surcharges passed along for transportation.

Soybean prices rose to their highest level since 2004, climbing above $9 per bushel and up 54% since October, tracking trend in crude oil prices, as demand for bio-fuels fuels boosted demand for vegetable oils. Soybean prices also rose on speculation that increasing use of ethanol made from corn in the US will require farmers to switch more acreage from soybeans to corn next year. Rising demand for bio-fuel helped send soybean oil to a 23-year high.

link to article here

[Ferretlover]

I honestly don't know... In the last few months, I have managed to drive a whole month on one tank of gas, with about a quarter of a tank left, by planning out where I need (not want) to go. It has been fairly easy because I no longer work (my husband works).

I have noticed that the prices of nearly everything at the grocery store have been going up by 5-10 cents (except for meat which is going up higher faster).

Other things (like ferret food) we order online (usually no shipping costs), so that we don't have to use 'our' gas....

[TheDude]

Got curious about how much people in the US are driving on average, and found this handy .pdf:

Travel trends in U.S.. cities: Explaining the 2000 census commuting results

Average is 12.1 miles, time 25.5 minutes. There are about 10 million people doing commutes of over 60 minutes. Hard to imagine that with even $5/gal gas - let's say 20 MPG, 60 mile commute. 6 gallons to work and back, $30/day, $150 a week, $600 a month. Oh, and groceries. Oh, and MPG hits the floor in typical stop-and-go. This is why I see car pooling/sharing suddenly not being such a grotesque notion anymore, when prices pass a certain point.

There's also the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS). Haven't time to peruse all these docs and I'm no statistician, perhaps some of you have the know how to figure just how much we're driving in the US.

Also U.S. Population Reaches 300 Million, Heading for 400 Million: No Cause for Celebration, from the Earth Policy Institute.

Longer commuting distances and more congestion en route combine to increase the time spent in automobiles. In 1982 the average motorist experienced 16 hours of delay; by 2003 this had virtually tripled to 47 hours. Car commuting time is increasing in nearly every U.S. metropolitan area. “Rush hour” everywhere is becoming longer as commuters attempt to beat it by leaving work early or delaying their commute until traffic eventually wanes.

The costs of increasing congestion and longer commuting times are high. Traffic congestion in the United States in 2003 caused 3.7 billion hours of travel delay and wasted 2.3 billion gallons of fuel. The total bill for all of this was $63 billion.

[frankthetank]

Thats 150,000 barrels a day of gasoline wasted out of the 10million or so we use a day... Only way to fix it is less cars or more roads.

[azreal60]

Monte, I have to thank you for posting this thread. For some weird reason, This was the thing that got a family member to finally mention they where thinking about peakoil. I asked my aunts opinion for this poll, as she's more representative than I am of how americans will act with peakoil. She responded in the 4 to 5 dollar range. Then she said something I never thought I'd hear a family member hear. " since you told me about that peakoil stuff, I have been thinking about my driving habits more"

I just about died of shock. I'd been forbiden to depress my relatives anymore at family celebrations, so I figured they where just all going to stay in denial. Thanks again. =)

[mistel]

My breaking point was .75 cents per litre or about $3 a gallon. I sold my gas guzzler truck and gas car and bought a diesel car and truck that I run on waste vegetable oil. I need to use some diesel to warm up the engine, but I use maybe 10% of the fossil fuels that I used before. I also installed a wood stove that I use to help lower my Natgas use. I also installed an electric water heater, sure it costs more to run, but it it cleaner.

Peter

[chippuller]

I want to let the sheep that continue to pay these obscene prices for fuel to know that even though there has not been a new refinery opened in the USA in the last 10 years or more the refinerys have made sure they will be able to produce unlimited quanities of gasoline to anybody willing to pay.... This fact is supported by the New York Mercantile Exchange taking control of the crude oil price schemes and kicking OPEC out in about 1988. We meaning the USA determine what the USA consumers will pay to drive their vehicles on public highways like sheep. The West Coast gets 100% of their crude oil from Alaska. I checked and Alaska is one of the 50 states. Why is the price of gasoline so high on the west coast. greed is the answer Wake up Amerika

[kjmclark]

The problem with this poll is that it takes gas prices in isolation, when it's more likely that all petroleum based, produced, or transported products would also at least triple.

Yes, but it is with transportation that we must start, as that is the big user and where it will be felt the most.

Hard to do an all-encompassing poll.

Sorry, Monte. I keep complaining about polls and having to apologize later.

What I should have said is many people forget that as gas prices rise, just about everything else will rise in price as well, and - this is the important part - most people's income won't rise at the same rate. One way to capture this in a poll would be to say "Assuming your pay doesn't rise, how high to gas prices have to rise to curb your demand?" Then the options might be:
-$4 per gallon, with food prices rising 10%
-$5 per gallon, with food prices rising 25%
-$6 per gallon, with food prices rising 50%
-$7-10 per gallon, with food prices doubling
-$10 or greater, with food prices quadrupling

I don't know that those food price inflation numbers would match the gas price increases like that, and other prices would be rising as well, but this at least points out that other prices will be going up too. I think a lot of the general public sees a poll like this (we have them all the time in the Detroit area) and thinks "if gas prices go up but nothing else does." This goes along with the thought that "it's the rotten oil companies gouging us, and decent sellers of other products wouldn't be so evil." But the gas prices won't rise in isolation.

It reminds me of the ethanol lobby point this week (story here). Popcorn prices are rising quickly at the supermarket and cinema and ethanol is being blamed. But as the ethanol lobby pointed out, you can buy the popcorn from the farmer for $5 a bushel or so, or you can buy a tiny little bucket of popcorn at the cineplex for that same $5. The actual popcorn is only about a penny of the cost of the bucket of popcorn, so a doubling of corn prices should only cause a 1 cent rise in the cost of that bucket of popcorn. But the price at the cinema is rising 25 cents or so.

The real story is that increasing costs at the pump are feeding through the economy, raising prices for many things. The accumulating price increases, without a corresponding increase in pay, that will break people's budgets. They'll actually cave at a lower gas price than they think, since they'll run out of money paying higher prices for other things as well as the higher price for gas.

Or, as markets suggest this week, they won't be able to borrow anymore and they'll lose their job, making the current price unaffordable.