Addressing climate change through collective action for almost no cost
Whenever I hear discussions about climate change, the conversation inevitably focuses on the “evil” oil companies. While they are certainly not blameless in their billion-dollar efforts to promote climate denial and misinformation, the truth is that they are completely dependent upon us for all their revenue and power.
Until recently, if you wanted to drive somewhere, you had no choice—you needed to fill up at a local gas station and pay whatever it took to fill your tank. We have been attached by an oily umbilical cord to Exxon, Shell, BP, Chevron, etc. all of our lives. Not surprisingly, they have become some of the most valuable and profitable companies on the planet. Exxon reported profits of $36.0 billion in 2023 which was down from the previous year! Think what $36 Billion could do to preserve the rainforest, install charging stations, or construct microgrids around the world!
But now we have alternatives. There are over 590 different electric vehicle models in the world, and over 100 in the US —cars, pickup trucks, SUVs, sedans, trucks, semis. Boulder recently bought its first electric fire truck! They work. They’re fun to drive. And they don’t stink. We have the technology and the products, we just need to convince more people that they are better than driving vehicles that depend on oil companies every time you get in them.
Forget climate change for a second—let’s just talk about the freedom to spend your money where you want. There’s nothing more empowering than waking up every morning with your battery full of electrons because you plugged your car in at home the night before and can drive past all the gas stations on your way to work. There’s lots of fear, uncertainty, and doubt about range anxiety and claims that electric cars don’t go far enough, but I’ve been driving them for 10 years and only experienced range anxiety once, 8 years ago, when I completely forgot to charge my car while skiing. I made it home with 6 miles to spare. By the way, many ski areas offer free charging and designated EV spots right at the front of the parking lot near the lift, which may be the best perk ever for driving an electric car—but I digress.
It’s not just cars and trucks. It’s electric motorcycles, e-bikes, mowers, blowers, induction stoves, heat pumps, electric water heaters, and more. All of these alternatives are better than gas/oil-based products for many reasons (health, cost, noise) and all reduce your dependence on oil companies.
For the first time in our lifetime, we have the power to vote with our dollars and say no to these companies who have literally owned us all our lives. Their product is the primary driver of carbon behind climate change. It’s also so valuable that oil companies have destroyed rainforests and spilled oil on every continent, leading to unspeakable environmental damage. They’ve assassinated democratically elected leaders in South America and the Middle East in pursuit of oil and generally ruled the world economy for the last 50 years. (Read “Confessions of an Economic Hitman”, by John Perkins, or “Blowout”, by Rachel Maddow). It sounds so simple, but we can simply stop buying from them.
That’s what they fear most. That’s the reason behind all the disinformation, fear, and uncertainty about electric cars that have prevented people from buying them in the quantities we’ve seen in less politicized countries such as Norway (95% of new cars are electric). They’re scared that if demand goes down 10%, it will send economic ripples through every company involved in oil production, extraction, refining, and distribution. We can crash the price of oil by just buying 10% less of it. It doesn’t have to be 100% less—even 10%, then 20% would stop new drilling and fracking and significantly reduce these companies’ profits. We have the power; we’re just not using it.
Yes, there are many other reasons to buy electric vehicles: they’re quieter, you can charge at home instead of going to a gas station, they’re smarter, more fun to drive, have greater acceleration, and lower maintenance costs. You don’t cough when you’re running behind them and no one dies if you leave them running in the garage. But perhaps the most motivational reason, which isn’t discussed very often, is that they free you from the oil companies.
Let’s look at this from a wider perspective. When the right-wing boycotted Bud Light because of their use of a trans person in a social media ad, it cost Anheuser-Busch over a billion dollars in revenue, and they lost 30% market share almost instantaneously. While I don’t agree with the cause, that’s the single best demonstration I’ve seen of collective purchasing power. Seventy percent of Americans are worried about climate change and want to do something. Yes, you can call your Senator and Congressperson, and you can march in the streets, but I believe the single best thing we can do is to collectively vote with our dollars.
Two-thirds of greenhouse emissions are generated from household decisions (UN Environmental Program Report): how you heat your house, the car you drive, how you cook your food, your food waste, etc. This means two-thirds of emissions are our responsibility, and we can have an impact. If all of us stopped buying bottled water—which is full of microplastics and less healthy than tap water—it would have a massive effect on plastic production, and oil burned for distribution and transportation. Is it really necessary to ship water from Fiji to your home because it has a nice flower logo? That’s obscene.
Plastics are made from oil, so every time you buy something packaged in plastic, you are paying part of that price to the oil companies. When did body wash become necessary? We didn’t grow up with it—it’s just liquid soap. What’s wrong with bar soap? There’s absolutely no need for body wash. If we all stopped buying it, we’d reduce not just plastic usage but also emissions from transporting something that’s up to 85% water across the continent. Similarly, shampoo doesn’t need to come in a plastic bottle—it’s fine in bar form, as is shaving cream, deodorant, laundry detergent, and many other household products.
We can have a major impact by voting with our dollars, especially if we do it collectively. If every organization with a newsletter list and social media account coordinated one monthly action, it could effortlessly be communicated to hundreds of millions of people. This would create significant behavioral change at almost no cost. If we launched a new initiative every month, we would truly restore power to consumers where it belongs and make real change instead of just worrying about it.
I know many people are extremely worried about our already late climate initiatives given the new government that doesn’t believe in climate change (or has just been paid off by oil companies to say they don’t believe in it). As an aside, there’s nothing to “believe in” about climate change—it’s a fact. You can easily graph the world’s temperature increase and its effects through greater storms, fires, and natural calamities such as tornadoes. It’s not a belief or an opinion, or something that should be debated, but that’s the subject for another paper..
Instead of worrying, let’s take simple action. It doesn’t require legislation or money—it only requires that everyone who cares take one simple, coordinated action a month. For most people, this would save them money while building a worldwide army of consumers who are spending to preserve the environment and the futures of their children. Let’s do this.