When I read the news back home about all the outrage over fuel prices, it makes me mad for several reasons. Maybe it’s just because I’m taking a different perspective on things here in Asia, but overall I think I would feel the same whether I was home or not.

The final straw came when an old coworker of mine from England sent me a forward about how I should boycott Shell and Esso (the two largest companies) and how if everyone did that, the prices of oil would go down because it’s all a conspiracy against the consumer and blah blah blah. I will attach letter here for context:

>>>We are hitting 123.9 a litre in some areas now, soon we
> > will be faced with paying 2.00 a ltr. Philip Hollsworth
> > offered this good idea:This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the
> > ‘don’t buy petrol on a certain day campaign that
> > was going around last April or May! The oil companies just
> > laughed at that because they knew we wouldn’t continue
> > to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of
> > an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.
> > BUT,whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan
> > that can really work.Please read it and join in!Now that
> > the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us
> > to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take
> > aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the
> > market place not sellers. With the price of petrol going up
> > more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only
> > way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is if
> > we hit someone in the pocket by not purchasing their Petrol!
> > And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here’s the
> > idea: For the rest of this year DON’T purchase ANY
> > petrol from the two biggest oil companies (which now are
> > one), ESSO and BP. If they are not selling any petrol, they
> > will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce
> > their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.
> > But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of
> > Esso and BP petrol buyers. It’s really simple to
> > do!!Now, don’t wimp out at this point… keep reading
> > and I’ll explain how simple it is to reach millions of
> > people!!I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each
> > of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)… and
> > those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)
> > … and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth
> > generation of people, we will have reached over THREE
> > MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and
> > pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people
> > will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you
> > guessed it… ..THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!Again, all
> > You have to do is send this to 10 people. That’s
> > all.(and not buy at ESSO/BP) How long would all that take?
> > If each of us sends this email out to ten more people
> > within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could
> > conceivably be contacted within the next 8days!!! Acting
> > together we can make a difference . If this makes sense to
> > you, please pass this message on.PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY
> > LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE RANGE It’s easy to
> > make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your
> > petrol at Shell, Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons Jet etc.
> > i.e. boycott BP and Esso

That was an interesting email/forward about fuel prices, however I have to say I come from a different perspective, if you care to take the time and read.

I live in Taiwan and I own a 125 cc scooter. It used to cost under $4 Canadian dollars (100NT) to fill it up, 95 grade fuel. Now that the prices have increased, it costs me just under $5 Canadian dollars…or 2 British pounds for the same fuel. It will probably go up again, but I’m not complaining for three reasons:

1> I own a scooter, not a car, an SUV or a massive boat that I commute hours on to work. In fact, I drive ten minutes a day and sometimes (gasp) I even ride my bike. If other people did the same, gas wouldn’t cost as much because there would not be as much demand. The air would be clearer. Simple.

2> Pollution. I live in a city that has the second-highest carbon emmissions per capita in the WORLD. If you live in Canada or England or pretty much anywhere else but China and maybe Russia…you will take clean air for granted. But I never will again. Because I can’t go outside without a mask. BUT I am also lucky enough to be able to live in a developing country where REAL change is happening in a semi-democratic society. In the past SIX months, two things have happened: we have gotten a new Subway/Metro/MRT/Tube system and also the price of gas went up.

I can breathe, I get sick less often, and I can see the mountains. I’m not even joking…it’s THAT much of a difference! Like night and day…you would have to live here to understand.

3> The most I see the world from an Eastern perspective, the more I realize that the world is just plain getting smaller. That means people in the West can NOT keep on living unsustainably. It doesn’t mean giving up your lifestyle. Simply making better choices. Do you really need a truck that holds 8 people? Do you really need to live that far away from work? Do you really need to buy a product that came from halfway across the world? Nope. The difference is that people in a Western, democratic world that is relatively wealthy in comparison HAVE this choice, whereas others do not always have it because of economic/political instability and poverty, not to mention a lot more natural disasters that a lot of Western countries never have to face.

Anyway just my opinion. I just want to add in my two cents about the ‘outrage’ over high fuel costs. I’m always happy to hear the other side though! Please, comment.

~ by globalciti on June 11, 2008.