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  • From: Don Bowen <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Riot for Austerity! 90% Reduction Emissions Project
  • Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 08:30:48 -0700

At 6/14/2007, you wrote:
Are any of us really going to build some kind of home energy
production device? I doubt it.

We little guys can do nothing about the global energy situation. What
we can do is to plan and prepare for how we will live when gas prices
rise ever higher, to the point of financial pain. Like health, we
must take personal responsibility. It ain't about "them" or "they."
It's about each of us personally.

There is a small movement started by Sharon at http://casaubonsbook.blogspot.com/ and Miranda at http://simplereduce.wordpress.com/ to reduce our individual emissions by 90% for the next year.

Intro:
http://simplereduce.wordpress.com/riot-for-austerity-90-reduction-project-intro/
rules:
http://simplereduce.wordpress.com/riot-for-austerity90-rules/
FAQ:
http://simplereduce.wordpress.com/90-faqs/
mailing list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/90PercentReduction/

Interesting concept and I am curious to see how well it works out.



Don Bowen Awl Knotted Up KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com
My travel journal
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html

I am omnivagant.
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We little guys can do nothing about the global energy situation.

This I would emphasize by adding that whether gas prices are the result of a depleting resouce or whether the evil oil compaines are just gouging the consumer, it is little odds. There is STILL nothing we little guys can do.

Even if all the conspiracy flack were true, do you really think that there is someone we could elect, some protest or boycot we could organize, that would result in the oil companies saying, "Ah, eh, you got us. The gig is up. To make it up to you, gas will now be 75 cents a gallon."

The truth is that oil companies are making record profits because we are using a record amount of gas. Interestingly enough, one of the reasons, besides being stupid and greedy, is ethanol. It takes a gallon and a half of ethanol to equal the energy of one gallon of gasoline. So as more ethanol is added to fhe fuel supply, the average mileage per gallon goes down and we buy more fuel.

But hype aside, how much do oil companies make in profit? The overall profit for oil companies is 5.9 cents for every dollar of retail sales. The average profit for all industries is 5.2 cents per dollar of sales. But wait! Oil companies make more money on fuel oil, lubricants, and oil derivitives for plastics than they do on gasoline. The average oil company profit on one gallon of gas is 10 cents.

Let's suppose that the oil companies (that is, it's investors) chose to run the business as nonprofit. How much better would you do if gas went from it's current $3.15 a gallon to $3.05?

But oil companies aren't nonprofit. And this puts one really important reality on the table. Oil companies are capitalists enterprises. That means oil is explored, mined, transported, refined, and retailed using someone else's money, someone else's risk, and not yours personally. Under such an arrangement people are entitled to a profit. That money available to finance the oil industry competes with every other industry that wants that money invested in its own business. At the pump, you are outbidding all other industries for the money it takes to run the oil industries.

When you shell out for gas at the pump, here is where the money goes:


Price of crude oil - 53%
Taxes - 18%
Dist & retailing 9%
Refining - 20%

Wait. Even if the price of crude goes up, why should refining and distribution go up to match? Because every step of the process to get the oil from the ground to the pump itself uses oil.
People, including congressional committees, have been looking into the notion of price gouging for a very long time and have not found evidence of it. All the gouging palaver boils down to the sneaky suspicion of "Ah ... ya never know .... I bet they are making 50% or 75% profit on gas ... I just betcha!"

The only thing you have in your control is your personal consumption which is not only the only thing that will make a difference to you personally, but it is the only thing, colletively applied, that will ever change world fuel problem. If gas suddenly went to $5 a gallon this summer, which it well may, we could save ALL that money back simply by cancelling just one trip to town a month. </HTML>




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