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How does an individual go about withdrawing ALL support for the oil companies?

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Besides the obvious, what ways can a person stop using oil? I know that plastics contain petroleum. What other household goods commonly contain oil derived chemicals?

I would like any advice you can give :) I want to stop supporting the madness that is going on...these companies are absolutely destroying the environment. Be as specific as you want!

928X90

Indeed How do we...I agree 200 percent...it started to go that way in the 1970's

Then as far as energy we seemed to have lost our collective resolve

Anyone remember the 55mph limit....it actually saves billions in gas

Anyone remember VW's and all the old 4 cylinders that were afraid of hills but got 40mpg or more

There is hope....we actually have made great strides in water pollution clean up.

Despite the Gulf incident

In coal country in Pennsylvania fish actually live in waterways that were dead to most aquatic life.

I saw a fish jump in the West Branch of the Susquehanna River the other day

It was dead for 30 years...coming back now

...lol...never felt so good about seeing a dumb fish

The ospreys and the Eagles are back...and the Blue Herons

Nature is resilient if you give it a CHANCE

Grass roots efforts can take root if they are given a chance

The real question is

How do they get a chance....what blocks them and how

I blame the lobby system and our campaign spending laws

And the way we elect our officials....they are backed by cooperation's

who I am sure get their monies worth.....democrats and Republicans both

Also they drill cause we buy...and buy and buy.......

The amount of cars on the roads also has increased by over 100 percent

Oil is big money....and China is waiting to buy all that we don't want

No easy answers....still more questions...and the clock is ticking

The problems need addressed
I have to say that unless you go to some pretty poor and isolated areas of the planet to live like a stone age native, you can't escape it. All household goods will contain some sort of petroleum derived product, even wood furniture. If the product is all natural like wood, then think HOW it got transformed from tree, cut, shipped, resold and then put together - every single one of the stages uses up oil.

Let me say it: it's impossible to avoid petroleum.
Anything that involves metal needs energy to smelt and work the metal. For most areas, that energy comes from fossil fuels. Ditto the energy for the tools used to build the house and the concrete in the foundation. The people in the U.S. that come the closest to no fossil fuels are probably the Amish.
It is quite possible today to minimize your use of fossil fuel energy by good conservation practice. This can cause a drastic reduction in overall fossil fuel use. Electrical utilities estimate the possible savings with today's tech at about 1/3 of the nation's fuel consumption. That is a reduction in the financial clout of the oil companies by about the same amount. Then, as newer green tech comes more and more into the picture, Big Oil and King Coal will mean less and less. That is exactly why the fossil fuel industry pours so much money into lobbyists and disinformation campaigns. They want to get as much as they can before they lose their political and financial primacy .
There is much misinformation out there that would lead to the belief that being "100% oil free" is possible. It is not. Do not, especially, take the word of politicians. Both the right and the left are wrought with corruption and vested interests for under-the-table deals.

Follow your heart and educate yourself with all biases removed.

Electricity can be generated individually today but components for generating energy takes products that are derivatives of oil. Your example of plastics is one of them. Electricity in the U.S. is primarily generated by fossil-fuel burning facilities. Because of all the anti-nuclear movements in the 60's & 70's inhibited our desire to build nuclear generation plants, as much of Europe, Asia and Australia has. Wind & Solar technology is barely starting to scratch the surface and has quite a ways to go still.

Instead live to be balanced with nature. Give thanks every day for what you have in your life and that it serves you to live responsibly. This will begin the wheel of maya to work with you, not against. As more and more accept this practice, nature will once again begin to serve humanity and our planet.

Blessings
I would like to ask you, in what way are these companies are "abosolutely destroying the environment"? Are you saying they are poluting the environment on purpose? Are the worse than any other buisiness in the're practices, or ethics? Do you consider the the fact that our society is run (basicaly) on the energy from coal and oil? Who is demanding this product? I hope you know I'm being serious and am not making fun of your opinion, but you have to consider the benifits of oil and gas as well. How would you heat your home or go to work without gas? Or have food ready at the grocery store? Please respond. Sincerly, Matthew.
oil, and plastic, has worked its way into our society in a manner in which every single thing that is produced has plastic components. so individually it will be really hard. you could no longer drive a conventional automobile...you would have to eat all natural...and your creature comforts would have to be made from earth, stone, or wood. This can be done but you would have to give up everything. Even if you just ride your bike to the grocery store to get an apple that apple still came to the store in a semi that was burning up diesel letting out those huge clouds of exhaust. So really you just have to give it all up...get some land...build a hut or if you have the money build a concrete home with steel roof with geothermal temperature regulation and solar powered battery banks. This whole set up would cost you, depending on the size of the home, around 150K...then you grow your own fruit trees, have a veggie garden, maybe a couple chickens and thats it. Individually i see this as the only option. Collectively we could all boycott gas, oil, and plastic...but the country would fall into chaos very shortly. Or those who are in positions of power can wake up and stop killing the world.. I was listening to Rush last night...its a beautiful song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quBCjo2rU…

"Closer To The Heart"

And the men who hold high places
Must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart
The blacksmith and the artist
Reflect it in their art
They forge their creativity
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart

Philosophers and ploughmen
Each must know his part
To sow a new mentality
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart
You can be the captain
I will draw the chart
Sailing into destiny
Closer to the heart
Since nitrogen fertilizers are made from natural gas, you would have to stop eating anything grown in monoculture. No corn, wheat, soy beans, none of the mass crops. This works well with your desire to stop destroying the earth because these mass crops are dependent on ( http://www.monsanto.com/products/ag_prod… ) Monsanto's genetically modified seeds and the use of Roundup® Agricultural Herbicides. Agribusiness kills the soil since dirt to them is only a sponge to hold chemicals. That soil is dead since they don't feed it organic material, only poisons. It blows away. Your food comes out of it.

Monsanto is evil.
http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/Monsa…
I think the only way you can do that is to die. Even then you will probably be put in a box with glue and liner made with products containing oil or incinerated using natural gas.
The best thing to do is REDUCE your use of oil. Drive very little, buy used clothes, insulate your house better, reduce and reuse all the materials you can. Not only will these ideas severely restrict your oil use, but they will also save you lots of money.
move to a cave in the middle of the untamed wilderness. you'll have to walk, naked and take nothing at all with you - anything like tools, food or clothes will have been made with at least the assistance of oil - either in energy, transport or manufature.
it will be hard, but others will appreciate your sacrifice.
Oil is used for almost everything we use, but it is possible. recycle the stuff you've got already, grow your own vegies stop driving but that probably the obvious you mentioned.
Food, pharmaceuticals, clothing, building materials. Pretty much everything is either made from petroleum or requires energy to fabricate and transport.
it's too late. there's plastic in your computer.
While you are at it do't forget to stop eating food !
become Amish ...
employ socialism, it waste less
i dont know
These people are evil beyond evil. As if they created strung out drug addicts and then said ... "Well, you can quit any time you like". Demons! The fact that shampoo, soap, make up, elastic (as in underwear and lingerie), everything that packages our food, our clothing and carpet and computers and most of the material in cars plus the fuel to drive them, medical supplies ... God knows, we live in an oil saturated world and I'm surprised they haven't tried to think of a way for us to eat the stuff ... oh, wait, they have. A massive chunk of farming, is dependent on petroleum, including the feed for livestock (which we consume) and the fertilizer for the crops which we also live on. Now that dumping massive quantities into our oceans ever twenty or so years has become the trend, seafood may probably take on a little different taste.

As for getting off the grid and converting your cars to bio or electric and basically telling the oil companies to stick it where the sun don't shine, check out Brasscheck.tv for some really cool videos on those subjects plus a lot more. Another place for "How To's" in instructables.com. I have a personal preference that would make them spend every dime they had ever made raping this planet and it would start in the gulf. On live television, the owner of BP has his pockets filled with rocks and is forced to swim across the gulf of Mexico ... winner take all! But thats me ...
This is less like an addiction, and more a like trap, which we have helped to make, and so we can get out. The way to escape is with a three legged approach: individual action, working with groups and making the governments do the right thing.

1. Individual action
To reduce personal carbon footprint (the amount of carbon dioxide that goes into the air from burning fossil fuel.) use less:
electricity and things manufactured with electricity (mostly made by burning coal and natural gas)
gasoline and anything transported by vehicles running on oil (especially airplanes)
corporate grown food because chemical fertilizers release a greenhouse gas (nitrous oxide)

Much of this is actually very pleasant. I have gotten to know my neighbors better by walking to the market and riding the bus with them. I listen to birds when I hang laundry in sunlight, and feed worms for them by composting food scraps. I keep the kitchen cool by cooking in a solar cooker, (http://solarcookers.org) and limit my exposure to mind-numbing visions of violence by reading and singing more - all reducing the use of electricity by household appliances. The dishwasher is an exception as they say that it uses less hot water to wash them dishes all at once. Ask Umbra at http://grist .org for more suggestions.

There is no way we are going to stop using plastic, so recycling it is important. Its light weight can actually help reduce energy use. One reason to stop burning oil is to save some so future generations will still have some oil left to make plastic items, like this computer.

2. Work with groups. We are not alone. Most of the people in the US know that global warming is a bad problem. There are many organizations.
Public Interest Research Groups http://pirg.org
National Resources Defense Council nrdc.org
Greenpeace http://greenpeace.org
Union of Concerned Scientists http://uscusa.org

A book, The Climate Challenge, 101 Solutions to Global Warming by Guy Dauncey. has websites of groups working for a safe, prosperous, healthy clean energy economy. Examples: to help your school recycle, get your office start using compact fluorescent bulbs, ask your bank to use recycled paper, tell your local grocery store to put doors on their freezers, get pension funds to invest in clean energy instead of fossil fuel stock.

3. Make governments do the right thing.
Log onto the websites of organizations above for information and letters all written so you can contact your elected representatives and other officials quickly and easily. Getting on their action alerts brings makes it even easier.
Help elect candidates that will change the system.
We do not live in a free market economy. The government has supported the oil industry for 50 years, with tax breaks, loans, grants for research, by building roads for single occupancy vehicles instead of public transportation, and fighting wars to keep the oil flowing cheaply.
The use of clean energy could replace fossil fuel in a decade if the government supported investment in wind, solar, and geothermal and stopped favoring fossil fuel.
The US has spent one trillion and thirty billion dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan so far. Congress just decided to spend (or borrow) $39 billion more for Afghanistan. . The Pentagon has said that global warming is a huge threat to our security. If we used that $39 billion for clean energy, we could stop the year's increase in carbon emissions.
The League of Conservation Voters http://lcv.org needs volunteers to help voters learn which candidates have voted for environmental protections, and which ones have taken lots of contributions from the oil industry.
Thank you for asking this question. Thank you for facing the future with caring and intelligence and a resolve to make it better.
Build your own cabin out of trees but use rope and not nails; forage for your own food' drink out of the streams.

Sorry, but you were born in the wrong time. You will need to go back to the 1600's to get "close" to what you are seeking.

I feel sorry for you as this will be a miserable life for you in the 2000's.

I think I would avoid your petroleum free link as they are suggesting that you use plastic containers to grow food, which of course is made by the oil industry. The whisky barrels are probably worse as they use steel strapping made from the gas guzzling fired furnaces, beside the inside being burned by propane torches.

As a rule of thumb anything made by man that used machinery to create is using oil and should be avoided like the plague. Buy only hand made products that have no carbon steel, copper, brass or chrome.

Keep in mind that anything you recycle will cause more pollution in the coal fired process than the process to create it from scratch by oil products. You are only limiting the oil consumed, and not reducing the impact on the environment.

Try to lead a Anabaptists life... that's about as close as you can get in todays standards.
I loooked into the cost of converting my van into using electric power and it will cost about $8,000. But that should be offset in a couple of years.

Tires are 90% oil so you can keep your tires inflated and purchase tires that will give you higher mileage.

Plastic bottles are mostly oil so take them to the recycle yards and get money back for your efforts.

When you change oil, do it at home, and take the old oil to Kragen's to be recycled for free. Or make it into soap.

Cut your power bills around the house. Use energy efficient light bulbs and turn off all electrical appliances when not in use.

Manage your trips to the store. I go to the grocery store once a week or longer if I can stretch it. If I have to go to the doctor or clinic or have blood drawn, I combine that with everything else I have to do in town, including re-fueling the vehicles. By only driving once or twice a month I've been able to only use one tank of gas a month, and that includes emergency or necessary trips to take my roommate into town for special projects, meetings, etc. If
EVERYONE limited fuel usage to the extreme, the prices at the pumps will plummet, BUT that is no excuse to use the cars MORE. If we keep watching the pumps and make sure that the prices continue to drop, by spreading these economic tips to our friends and neighbors, it will be amazing how we can transfer the money from the fat cat Oil Companies to our own pockets.

Solar systems on the houses to cut energy consumption will cut fuel usage since the power companies often run on diesel generators and they use TONS of fuel. I use the fans in my house more now than ever and keep the A/C set at around 85 instead of 75. My power bill for this ENTIRE year to date is STILL under $100 total. I have a solar system but at night when the temps aren't TOO extreme I turn it off or set it for 87 so that it will not kick in. During the day I keep it as high as I can stand and when I feel too hot even then I go outside and walk the dog or get the mail and acclimate to the 100 temps outside ... and then when I go inside to an 85F house it's not so bad after all. The other day I woke up and left the A/C off until mid afternoon when it started feeling hot and I looked at the thermostat and it was 88 in the house. I didn't notice the gradual increase in temps until it got to be excessive. At night I turn the fan on next to my bed and shut off the A/C.

Also, I pay all my bills online which cuts down on fuel usage as well. I use Netflix to cut down on gas going to the Video store.

There are even more ways to cut costs and energy use. Your utility company will buy you a new fridge if your old one is over 18 years old or is inefficient. They recently installed a NEW A/C unit for FREE and my new A/C uses WAY less power than the old one.

I AM
dartagnon