High Gas Prices = The Death of Oil Companies
It’s safe to say that there is a consensus that gas prices are too high, so let’s talk about it. No matter what you drive, you are feeling the pain of high gasoline costs. After trading my truck almost a year ago for a Tercel that gets over 30mpg, 3 bucks a gallon still hurts. This is the post where we can all complain about high gas prices, but first let me rant about BP for a little while…
Is it me, or have the BP commercials been running less since the hurricane? You know, the ones where they interview the average person on the street to get their opinion about oil companies. I couldn’t stand them before the price hikes, but now they are just unbearable. Does anybody buy this scripted fraud? The handheld camera fools less people than the Blair Witch Project. My favorite one is where the lady says “giving up your car is like giving up chocolate, it just isn’t going to happen.” They close the spot with some statistic that shows that BP was just what average joe wanted in a gas company several years before the competition. Fade to the beautiful green and yellow flower logo that makes me ashamed to be a designer. Man, I love that logo. Deception by design for sure. I think I found my moral line. I couldn’t design a logo for an oil company. Many others could though, check out Brand Channel where the experts weigh in on the BP facelift.
With your fancy logos and expensive whitewash campaigns, you oil companies think you are too cool for school. But here’s a newsflash for you Walter Cronkite: You aren’t! (Name that movie for bonus points.) Seriously though, is there anything we can do to lower the high fuel prices? Refusing to design their logos is a laughable suggestion. The government can’t step in and force the gas companies to lower their prices, either. I don’t think Bill O’Reilly’s Sunday gas boycott would work, but there is nothing wrong with his suggestion that oil companys voluntarily sacrifice 20% of their profit. The greedy jerks won’t do it, and that is why they will be extinct soon. Supply and demand doesn’t have to be our enemy. There is a silver lining to this dark smoggy cloud. While the demand for oil has forced oil prices sky high, it has also caused a new demand. Not a demand for oil, but a demand for an alternative. Honestly, we don’t care what the alternative is, whether it is a hybrid car, or alternative fuels, or just really efficient vehicles, the demand is there and it gets stronger every day. This is the market force that gives me hope. Many people will get rich when they find a way to fulfill this demand. Toyota is cashing in with the Prius, and the waiting list is just finally starting to get under control. Other solutions will soon follow, all we have to do is wait for the supply to catch up with the demand. The new solutions will need good logos. That is a design project I would love to be involved with.
So what do you think? Would you design an identity system for an oil company? Do you have a solution to our crisis? Do you love or hate the BP logo? Would you buy a hybrid? Just want to vent? Let ‘er rip…
September 12th, 2005 at 3:41 am
Gas prices are certainly high, but nowhere near as high as they were in the 1970′s (adjusted for inflation). It’s just something to keep in mind, is all.
It also doesn’t help that everyone and their grandma is driving around a vehicle that is 3 times too big for their needs. Seriously, unless you live in a town with no paved roads, or you have a family of 8, there’s no excuse for owning an SUV. You deserve to be paying $60 at the pump, consider it a-hole tax.
But regarding the big bad oil companies, the bottom line is this: we all use gas. Whether you’re taking your car, a bus, or a helicopter to work, oil companies provide a service DIRECTLY to you. They improve your quality of life by allowing you to get from point A to B without walking or peddling. It’s the part that everyone takes for granted while they’re complaining about how destructive and expensive they are.
And they may be all of those things, to be sure. There is an unending need for evolution and change in our technology, especially when it comes to natural resources. But let’s have that discussion WITHOUT demonizing oil companies… unless you’re willing to walk the walk and boycott their products.
I didn’t think so.
As an advertising designer, I would be a hypocrit to refuse to promote a product that I use on a regular basis for moralistic reasons. Design in advertising is about creating desire. But with a product that everyone uses bar none, you don’t need to sell the product, you need to sell preference. Even if all the ad hype amounts to BP doing just a smidge more for the environment than all the other oil companies, that’s still a smidge. It needs to be the focus of their image if they intend to create preference.
I think you said it best, the beautiful logo makes you ashamed. You are ashamed because it’s very sexy to hate oil companies (and other examples of so-called Corporate America) yet you are secretly a loyal customer to all of them by absolute choice.
September 12th, 2005 at 8:37 am
Hmmm… Bobby you make a few good points. I agree that we should have this discussion without demonizing the oil companies just because it is en vogue to do so. However, I disagree that, as a designer, we can’t have a moral dilemma surrounding our redesigning an oil company’s logo.
This goes with one exception… Which is my answer to Adrian’s question. I would have no qualms about redesigning an oil company’s brand, if they were doing something to help the situation.
When I attended the Wired NextFest here in Chicago a couple months ago, I spoke with a GM representative who was talking about the potential of Hydrogen vehicles. This technology sounds amazing! She said that GM will have the ability to fully integrate this technology into their cars by 2008… but they won’t be able to bring them to market in any large way until 2012. You know why? Because they have to work out the Hydrogen distribution system. Do they adopt a typical gas station model like we have now? Do they find some way of having consumers order Hydrogen fuel and have it delivered?
This is an area where the oil companies can help. They already have the real estate across the country and they already provide the service (of fueling your car) to the consumer, so it’s not like you’d have to sell consumers on the idea of going somewhere different to take care of this need.
Fundamentally, this is a solution that’s just waiting for branding and marketing to get ahold of. And, quite honestly, I would have no problems at all getting involved in that.
On the flip side, rebranding an oil company so they can sell the same product to a wider set of consumers is not attractive to me at all.
Bobby, you suggest that the oil market is one where various oil companies are distinguished from each other by preference rather than by their product. I would argue that today, it’s neither preference nor product, but price instead. BP can put that “smidge” of environmental concern into their ads, but if the price is even a few cents more at the pump, consumers in this market won’t pay it. We are way to price-conscious right now.
So, until we can differentiate an oil company based on their product, their brand will take a back-seat to price.
My .02
September 12th, 2005 at 8:38 am
So, Ad-rock, you’re saying to BP “There’s got to be more to life than having a really, really ridiculously good looking logo.”? Well, I have one thing to say to you. Do you understand that the world does not revolve around you and your do whatever it takes, ruin as many people’s lives, so long as you can make a name for yourself as an investigatory journalist, no matter how many friends you lose or people you leave dead and bloodied along the way, just so long so you can make a name for yourself as an investigatory journalist, no matter how many friends you lose or people you leave dead and bloodied and dying along the way?
I dig. Nice.
Oh, and those bonus points from paragraph three are mine. The movie is Zoolander.
September 12th, 2005 at 9:54 am
+10 bonus points for Tom. He’s so hot right now…
Bobby, I am not upset with oil companies because it is “sexy.” There is nothing trendy about being upset about high gas prices. Trendy is buying an SUV just because you think they are cool. The massive public outrage has nothing to too with it being en vogue and everything to do with us getting ripped off! Yeah, everybody buys gas, that doesn’t mean we should be grateful to them for ripping us off. Everybody drinks water too. If the cost of water doubled in less than a year, and the major water companies ranked in the top 5 companies for total profit, you wouldn’t make the same argument. You would call it what it is: a ripoff.
I agree with Dave Giunta that the only thing that matters is price. The main purpose of branding in the oil industry is to make them appear environmentally friendly. There isn’t anything wrong with that, unless it isn’t true. Or if they are environmentally friendly and still rip us off. That is why it would be a moral dilemma for me to design their logo.
September 12th, 2005 at 11:47 am
The burning question for me is who’s really making the profits off of the entire fueling process, particularly because I’ve heard very contradictory accounts of where the accounting in question is really going on:
1. Friends / acquaintences that have worked as accountants for gas stations have outright stated that the price you see on the sign at the station is only ever 1 cent above the price that the owners are paying for the fuel (again trusting that you’re dealing with a reputable gas seller, and fortunately with the price competition within most cities few have a lot of choice about upping the price to such a rich degree that they’d really be raking in the bucks from the folks at the pump).
2. I’ve heard accusations landed against those pumping the oil and how quickly we’re depleting a natural resource, but I’ve as quickly heard discussions of there really being no pending lack of oil supplies, simply a lack of the processing plants to convert it into useable fuel.
3. So then we look to the refineries and ask, are they the ones controlling the output of the oil hence reaping the rewards of the per barrel price on gas? Somehow I have a lingering feeling that there’s yet one more level of control / cash flow above that point…
4. Other candidates that I’m simply unaware of – those setting the prices coming out of the Middle East (this seems to common a place for attack and suspicion to be landed – again, maybe my naivete is simply sticking out all over the place, but I have to believe that there are legitimate “oil barons” that aren’t inherently the ones setting prices high simply for the sake of going on extra cruises and buying more sports cars…)
I’m sincerely interested to pool our knowledge and resource and see what we can figure out – I’ve always found this discussion to swirl around in a perpetual spiral that lands somewhere in between the gas stations and the Arab Emirates…What’s really the fact of the matter?
September 12th, 2005 at 3:22 pm
US just needs to lower its fuel consumption to a reasonable level. Currently China and US are the worlds most inefficient countries in the world when it comes to fuel consumption.
With the current rate US will be in deep shit when the fuel prices reach similar levels as we here in Finland have. Currenly regular gasoline price here is around 1,5‚Ǩ/l, that’s around $5,6/gallon.
September 12th, 2005 at 4:38 pm
So, from I am understanding, the moral dilemma has to do with designing a logo for a company whose prices you believe are too high?
BP is one of the lowest priced suppliers as it is, especially since their acquisition of ARCO. I would like the overall situation to be better, but somehow I think the problem is more complicated than oil companies just jacking the price up because they can. Like everything in economics, demand/supply = value. As ellroy said, lower the demand, and you lower the value.
I too would love to see the shift to hydrogen or some other clean burning fuel, but the transition has to be slow enough so as to not unfairly put anyone out of business overnight.
The key thing one must remember is that buying gas is a choice. Although our complicated lives are connected in so many ways with our vehicles, it all starts with a choice. As long as we’re feeding the pumps on a regular basis, there’s no justification for either the consumer or the oil companies to lower prices. I’m not talking morals, ethics, or responsibility, I’m talking economics.
September 12th, 2005 at 5:00 pm
Yes, the moral dilemma is designing a logo for a company that rips its customers off and then posts the highest profits of anyone in the world.
What kind of economic world do you live in where transitions are “slow enough so as to not unfairly put anyone out of business overnight.” That doesn’t happen on Earth.
Buying gas is a choice? Since when? Everybody needs a car and gas to survive in this world. There isn’t a choice. Yeah, you don’t have to buy it, but you don’t have to drink water either. Without it you will die.
I was picking on BP because I hate there commercials, not because I feel they are worse than any other oil company. Maybe they are better, just more annoying.
September 12th, 2005 at 9:12 pm
Bobby… I think you may have mis-interpreted my comment about price. Price is not what would keep me from designing a brand for an oil company. As p.berkbigler alluded to, I suspect that the high price at the pump is more closely linked to the price of the barrel than with price gouging by BP or any other oil company for that matter.
My point was more about branding. You suggest that the oil industry’s marketing is not about the quality of the product (which it isn’t-93 Octane gas at Mobil is the same as the 93 Octane at BP), but preference, which I take to mean the slight environmental message (or the “man-on-the-street” style that Adrian spoke of in the original post) BP tries to infuse in their ads. But I’m arguing that in the current market, the price at the pump is what will change a consumer’s mind more than product or preference. I don’t think consumers right now are concerned about the environmental efforts of BP because they are more concerned over comparing the price boards from the two gas stations on opposite corners of the same intersection.
Right now, there is no good marketing messages for gas stations. The higher the prices get, the worse our impressions of them become. There are no brand loyalties in the gasoline market any more. Unless BP can create a message that says “we will be 10 cents lower than any other gas station, every time, every where” it won’t matter how well designed their logo is.
Speaking of which, with regard to the moral issue of designing a logo for a company whose product you use anyway. I have to say, just because you use that product out of necessessity doesn’t mean you feel it’s the best product out there.
And, I think there’s a difference from begrudgingly using a product that you know to be less than stellar and advertising that same product. What kind of testimonial could I possibly do for a product I loathe using?
I love driving my car. I would hate filling it with gasoline a lot less if it was better for the environment, cost less, and didn’t make our country so dependant on someone else’s product. In turn, I would feel great about advertising / marketing / branding a product that supplied those three things. Hence why I brought up the Hydrogen fuel solution.
I know Hydrogen is a long way off, and you’re right, it’s not fair to put anyone out of business over night. Except that that’s the only way Hydrogen will be able to come to fruition. What good is it to sell a car that can only be fueled at three places in the country? The distribution model has to be worked out, and it has to be completely in place before they start selling cars that use it, otherwise, the cars won’t sell. And I guarantee, if the situation with oil prices continues as it is now, these cars are going to sell like hotcakes. At which point, I’m sure there will be some businesses (the ones that don’t embrace the future now) that will die a horrible, overnight death.
September 12th, 2005 at 10:17 pm
Wow, Dave, what a great comment. Very well said.
Here is a link to an article that explains the record incomes of the oil companies. Part of the reason they have so much money is because they are out of new places to drill. So what do they do? Invest in developing alternative fuel? Use the excess profit to lower the cost of gas? Use it to develop a hydrogen infrastructure? No, they just get richer and richer.
September 13th, 2005 at 9:10 am
Thanks Adrian!
I checked out that link… I was afraid of that. You know, as much as I want to blame the oil companies alone for being so greedy, they are just like any other large corporation. Rare is it to find a company in Corporate America spending billions of their own profits on something other than lining the pockets of the board. So, it’s not surprising to hear the same practice happening in the oil industry. Until someone or something compells them to do otherwise, a business’ focus will always be on making as much money in as quick and painless a way as possible.
This ideal is what our capitalist society is based on-making money. And we’ve gotten so good over the years at making a lot of money with minimal effort. But what do we do with all that money once we’ve made it? Certainly there are the trappings of a lavish lifestyle to attend to. But after that… what? I can’t imagine what any one person could possibly do with more than a billion dollars. After a certain point, making more and more money seems pointless.
Maybe the rules of capitalism were devised at a time when no one thought it would ever be possible to make so much money that you wouldn’t need to make any more. Maybe these rules need to change.
Because of this I don’t think we can expect the oil companies to be any more compassionate than they already are. At least not all by themselves. So I ask, what can be done on our part to compel a for-profit company to act with the compassion and awareness of a not-for-profit company?
To that end, what if oil companies were deemed not-for-profits instead? 
Or what if the government imposed regulations on what they had to do with their excess profits.
What if we lobby the folks investing in (and thus raising the price of) oil, to get them to demand the oil companies put a certain amount of their excess into something helpful.
Fundamentally, I guess what I’m getting at, is we need to make it disadvantageous to the oil companies for them making money. What are your thoughts?
SIDEBAR: Something just occurred to me… If the numbers in the article above are correct, the oil companies collectively would be able to cover all of the aid we are sending to the Gulf Coast IN CASH. Course, that’s not what they’re doing, but that’s besides the point.
September 13th, 2005 at 9:16 am
Regarding what I mean by preference: It doesn’t just mean making a brand likable through environmental imagery. It can be any point of differentiation, including price, product quality, customer service, or frills thrown in.
In an industry as locked in as this, they can’t really make any price guarantees, and the product is exactly the same. As a result, what you see is gas companies standing out by the extra services and frills they provide. BP attempts to get the consumer on a deeper level. Whether or not it works, I don’t know. But the logo certainly conveys a deeper subliminal meaning than any competitor.
“Buying gas is a choice? Since when? Everybody needs a car and gas to survive in this world. There isn’t a choice. Yeah, you don’t have to buy it, but you don’t have to drink water either. Without it you will die.”
Adrian, your comparison is a testament to the average American mentality. First of all, you’d be surprised just how many people in the world do not own a car. And not just in impoverished 3rd world countries, but developed ones as well. Driving a car is a choice. You may have structured your life in ways that lean very heavily on that choice, but it’s still a choice. You won’t die.
It’s that mentality, combined with the sudden need to roll around in giant SUV’s, that is driving up the cost of gas. demand/supply = value. People feel a sense of entitlement to this product and then blame oil companies when they try to sustain a profit. They get mad at oil companies when they drill for more product. I agree that a change needs to made, but in the meantime, my car takes gas.
September 13th, 2005 at 11:08 am
“In an industry as locked in as this, they can’t really make any price guarantees, and the product is exactly the same. As a result, what you see is gas companies standing out by the extra services and frills they provide. BP attempts to get the consumer on a deeper level. Whether or not it works, I don’t know. But the logo certainly conveys a deeper subliminal meaning than any competitor.”
You’re right, the logo does convey a deeper subliminal meaning. However, don’t discount the fact that it was designed during a time when the market was flooded with messages about performance. So the environmental angle became a way of differentiating themselves in the marketplace in an attempt to create a loyal following of like-minded individuals to regularly use their product instead of the competition’s. This is the “preference” you’re talking about, I assume. And this is the problem with your argument.
An oil company can’t become a consumer’s preference right now because the market doesn’t allow for loyalty right now. People are too concerned about comparing prices… and will jump from one provider to another on a whim.
The fact that the oil companies can’t guarantee a specific price point is their own fault. The could, but it will cost them some of their profits. And so, they choose to raise and lower their prices every day (every hour in some places) and hope that consumers will make a generalization about which gas stations give them the best deal. Even though, that doesn’t really exist in this market.
September 14th, 2005 at 8:24 am
I’d like to raise a red flag within Adrian’s post:
“Buying gas is a choice? Since when? Everybody needs a car and gas to survive in this world. There isn’t a choice. Yeah, you don’t have to buy it, but you don’t have to drink water either. Without it you will die.”
Spoken like a true Midwesterner, sir – having lived on one of the coasts where it really was possible to get to and from basically every point you needed to both within a city and outside of it, we’re simply ignoring the benefits of mass transit and its availability. It involves a commitment to the additional time and walking necessary to work within that system, but it really isn’t true that any of us absolutely “have to have a car” to survive. Multiple cities and states prove this (even living in a more sparsely populated state like Nebraska, it’s not like there are no busses available to take…)
I also easily realize that there’s some fuel source powering those vehicles, but the beauty is inherently in the combined efforts of all the riders to stretch their dollar further and minimize fuel consumption per individual.
What you also easily have to combat in that is the powerful seduction of the car-cocoon effect – being someone who positively loves to drive, and especially loves making longer trips often on my own, it can be somewhat addictive to have that block of time where you can just turn on great music, sit in a little thought bubble and while away the hours looking at everything around you…
Having just switched over to carpooling with several other colleagues, however, it’s scintillating to have that forced time in conversation with one another – the dialogue has been rich, the drive has been easy, and the gas has been cheaper for each of us. It just took a few concessions to gain that.
We need to not operate on the assumption that technologies are necessary for existence – I think you’d be shocked at how ultimately successful you’d be at getting where you needed to if you were forced to utilize your creativitiy in transit as well.
September 14th, 2005 at 8:25 am
One other quick link to share – for those of us who are hopelessly hooked up to the pump, see if http://www.gasbuddy.com can help you out in the way it’s currently helping my wife and I…
Further evidence of the power of the on-line community in providing this sort of constant information.
September 14th, 2005 at 9:31 am
To clarify, Paul is also a *Midwesterner,* so don’t any of you coastal people think that was an insult. Or was it? Paul?
For people who live in a place with a network of busses, trains, and subways, you are right to say that driving a car is a choice. It is wrong however, to assume that because you have the luxury of a choice, everyone else does. There is no choice where I live. If I don’t “choose” to put gas in my car, I don’t get to work. I shouldn’t have to apologize for needing gas! I would guess that the majority of the US has to make this “choice” betweeen buying gas and working or not buying gas and starving. So, my only “choice” was to buy a more fuel efficient car. Paul carpools, and hopefully we are all trying to conserve our gas however we can. But all this takes the focus off the real problem here: HIGH FUEL COSTS! It isn’t the consumer’s fault. “Creativity in transit” won’t stop oil companies from ripping us off. The problem isn’t midwesterner’s who don’t take the bus. The problem is the corruption and greed of oil companies.
September 14th, 2005 at 1:23 pm
Adrian, with all due respect, that’s a very shortsighted point of view. The problem is not high fuel costs, it’s high fuel consumption. High fuel costs are a consequence of this problem. Billion-dollar oil companies are consequences of consumers needing billions of dollars of oil.
I’m not saying that oil companies are squeaky clean in their business practices and that there isn’t money shuffling going on, but the high price of oil most certainly is derived from two things. For repitition’s sake, they are supply and demand. We can blame low supply on the earth, war, politics, or what have you, but we can only blame ourselves for the high demand.
It’s not a matter of having to make apologies for the products you use, it’s just a simple matter of understanding your role in macro-economics.
September 14th, 2005 at 2:03 pm
Bobby, normally I would agree with your supply and demand/macroeconomics theory but I can’t in this case because of two things:
1. Oil companies are consistently toward the top, if not at the top of the world’s highest grossing companies.
2. Oil prices have pretty much doubled over the past year.
If you want, l cam find more specific numbers to prove those facts but it should be self-evident. With that in mind, I just can’t get on board with you. I do respect your position on the issue, though.
One thing we might be able to agree on is that the high cost of oil creates a huge demand for an alternative. Whoever solves that problem will be rich. If the oil companies aren’t the ones who find the solution, they will be destroyed. That was the point of my post. Surely you agree with that even if we disagree on the economics of high fuel costs.
September 14th, 2005 at 2:43 pm
“The problem is the corruption and greed of oil companies.”
Right you are, sir… I just don’t see how we’re going to solve that problem. And, in my opinion, it’s a problem that stretches far beyond the oil companies and all the way up to corporate America at large. As someone who works for corporate America (and hates it-can you tell?), I can honestly say, if we could get away with selling our product for more without losing customers, we would in a heartbeat. That’s the nature of big American business, though… make the most profit you can by any means necessary.
September 14th, 2005 at 3:36 pm
That’s more or less the nature of business in general, wouldn’t you say?
Adrian, yes I agree that there is a breaking point where astronomical prices will cause a shift in the business model. But I have no doubt that it will be the same people cashing in. There was a very intersting flash app that showed how all of the fortune 500 companies are interconnected by their board members. I can’t remember the name now, but it’s really interesting. Anyhow, the network of businesses is woven too tight for the oil industry to be destroyed, in my opinion. Now, about your reservations…
1. Yes, right up there with the other companies that provide products and services that most of the world uses every day. What’s odd about that?
2. I’m inclined to agree with you, it is a jump. I would however say it’s doubled in the last 4-5 years, not 1, but I digress. But for a complete view, there are several things that one has to take into account *other* than corruption and greed that led to this: 9/11, natural inflation, war in Iraq, strikes in Venezuela, Katrina, and the fact that until late 2003, we were actually paying less than average for oil according to the historical trend, making the rise in cost even more acute. It’s not a complete explanation, but it does help to justify some of the cost.
September 15th, 2005 at 2:10 pm
Paul, You always surprise me. Your viewpoint of a car not being necessary is very metro-centric. Of the state we live in, not one city has a subway outside of the sandwich shop. There are only two cities with even a marginal bus transit system. This may be a problem with how our nation has developed and maybe we can eventually correct this, but a huge portion of America does not have access to a public transit system.
September 15th, 2005 at 4:08 pm
I am a Midwesterner, and I may be ultimately rather metrocentric, but I’ve fought and lost multiple versions of the same argument you’re making about the lack of mass transit availability with some good civic planners and civil engineers. I might accept the argument that mass transit isn’t in place in towns under the 5000 population count, but then again you’re finally working with a geographic level that also allows willingly for bike transit and / or walking the whole distance vs. part of it.
Even in my Illinois hometown (pop. 13000) there are ample busses available to transit people around the whole burg – the fact of the matter is that you only ever see college students and lower income folks using them. Everybody else is sitting alone in their cars trying to figure out some way to pass the busses in traffic.
I can’t explicitly back this argument up in terms of the Nebraskan cities (Lincoln and Omaha obviously developed these transit networks by need of the population) as I don’t have all the stats on them, but I can’t believe that they’re all without taxis, busses, or some other sort of above ground transport…
Maybe, Bennett, your joke points out a misperception about mass transit as well – it’s obviously more than just the subway for many people.
While there’s not a Seward bus that I climb on daily to make the sojourn from Lincoln into work, we’ve effectively suplemented that by pooling our resources – even if fuel prices do finally dip back down into seemingly tolerable levels I suspect we’re going to continue carpooling as it’s been an excellent source of social connection.
The danger to me of assuming that cars are the only way is that it feeds the base issue at hand: fuel consumption, as Bobby highlights.
The luxury of choice is fully in swing when it comes to driving a car to begin with – it affords you the luxury of choosing where you really want to live as opposed to having to look in a geographic window that’s traversible on foot or bike. It affords you the luxury of deciding on the spur of the moment that you want to go somewhere.
It offers you a great deal of freedom, convenience, and employment options, and maybe that’s frankly what the gas price ultimately begins to include: an independence tax.
September 15th, 2005 at 5:16 pm
“I might accept the argument that mass transit isn’t in place in towns under the 5000 population count”
Try 25,000-50,000. At least without buses. You might see a random taxi here and there.
Sounds like you’ve got a good deal going with carpooling. I should ride my bike to work more often.
As far as driving to see friends and going to new places, I will gladly pay the “independene tax”.
September 18th, 2005 at 5:12 pm
I’m coming in late in the conversation, but I could not believe I had to scroll down so far to finally find someone questioning the design of our lifestyles and cities as a possible culprit to our energy woes.
Our gas prices are incredibly cheap relative to the rest of the world. Personally, I hope this perceived “expensive” gas will get people thinking about their lifestyles and urban planning. It seems so few actually look at the source of this problem. They are too busy lounging in their 3000 sq. ft., air-conditioned boxes, surrounded by acres of a meticulously groomed carpet of foreign grass species, while snacking out of the gallon jar of pickles they drove five miles to Wal-Mart to get for $2.98. What a deal! Anyone who has had the pleasure of running downstairs to pick up a carton of milk from the grocery store below them should understand what is wrong with this picture.
Not only does this unsustainable lifestyle make us angry when gas prices go up, but it also tears at the social fabric of our communities, something Paul has noticed from the benefits of carpooling with his colleagues.
Capitalism isn’t perfect, but yes, fortunately there will be alot of money in finding energy alternatives, as well in developing sustainable communities, and reforming public policy to spend our money on better things than 8-lane highways and other infrastructure extensions needed to aid sprawl. Here’s our next problem: today’s suburbs are tomorrow’s ghettos.
September 18th, 2005 at 8:36 pm
David, I think that is a good comment, and it stears this discussion back into the design arena. After hearing Andrew Zolli speak at the 2005 HOW Conference, I am hopeful for a better designed future. Market forces will undoubtedly still play a big role, but he sees a future where “success is not an afterthought, but the result of a designed situation. This is the model of the future.” If that holds true, we will be designing more than logos…
October 10th, 2005 at 12:58 pm
I think that the usa needs to get the heck out of Iraq and stat worrying about the big picture in the USA right now. I think we should tap into Alska and do what is right. “Peole before trees”
November 30th, 2005 at 10:35 pm
Wired’s cover story for December is called, “Why High Oil Prices Are Good for America.” It is a great article that talks about how the high price of gas is going to lead to innovative new solutions to our energy problems. Unlike my post though, it outlines many of the alternatives that are on the horizon. Here is a good quote, “So rising oil prices are more than just an irritant or even an ominous nick out of the GDP… For anyone with a fresh idea, expensive oil is as good as a subsidy – with no political strings attatched. Indeed, every extra penny you pay at the pump is an incentive for some aspiring energy mogul to find another fuel.” Check out the article if you are interested in this subject.
December 6th, 2005 at 7:46 pm
Gas Prices? their a joke going up to $3 A gallon and when you think you have your budget worked out. this just messes w/ it, but it don’t matter it’s gone down but just that second in time your porin out more dinero then usall owell?
April 12th, 2006 at 5:32 am
Coming from a family that spent over 50 years as oil jobbers from the 20′s until the 70′s, I’m sick of the con-job the oil execs continue to try to push. Let’s face it, net profit is net profit. A shortage may lead to closing stations, but all that will close are the small producers and providers that are forced out thus expanding the big boys market. One side overlooked is the small independent oil man who can be forced out by these high prices. Mobil/Exxon, Shell and BP would like to see only their stations on every corner and never anything else. Just like it is in Europe. My uncle who was chief petroleum engineer with a major oil company in the early 70′s pushed this agenda and swore to me we would be out of oil by the 90′s and $2.00 per gallon gas would be here by the 80′s. I told him at that time it was a hoax in an industry that can itself maintain supply to raise demand. Compare it to the diamond industry. DeBeers controls the majority of diamonds in the world and thus sets the price as if they are rare, all the while their vaults are packed with them. Thanks for letting me vent! Good luck America!
June 22nd, 2008 at 7:48 am
The people of this country are allowing the rich to get richer and so is Bush and congress…how much money do the greedy SOBs need to exist on this earth???…America will soon be out of busines!!!!
May 19th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Hydrogen Fuel is very promising, i only hope that we can mass produce soon enough.~;~