If You MUST Use Gasoline - Make The Best Choice You Can.

The Sierra Club has published "Pick Your Poison: An updated environmentalist's guide to gasoline", an update to a 2001 article, which profiles the 8 largest U.S. oil companies. The review of each company includes "Black Marks", "Stance on Global Warming", and "Green Initiatives."
The basic lineup is as follows:

Bottom of the Barrel: ExxonMobil -ConocoPhillips
Middle of the Barrel: Royal Dutch Shell -Chevron-Valero Energy Corp. - Citgo
Top of the Barrel: BP - Sunoco

Although we should be personally off of petrol in the next few months with our biodiesel production, it has taken us a year and a half to do so and we're still using gasoline from time to time. Being more green has been a slow transition for Laura and I. As we learn more about where our goods come from and the true cost of the energy we use, we make slow but important changes in how and what we consume. I wouldn't call being an ethical consumer "hard", but it does require research education, and attention to detail. This guide is just like any other consumer guide - it puts power in the peoples' hands to choose what companies deserve their dollar. This concept has been covered in The New Internationalist fairly well and it comes down to the fact that ethical shopping IS important and will slowly but surely change how even the biggest corporations source, manufacture, package, and transport their products. If we refuse to buy processed cheese with nitrites and preservatives, demanding organic cheese from grassfed beef, the healthier, more environmentally friendly option will become more available and less expensive. The same goes for our gasoline - if we refuse to support the likes of ExxonMobil, who has spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil, violates EPA standards routinely, and has paid millions of dollars to falsely add doubt into the science of global warming, they will lose power. If you won't write your congresspersons, get solar, use biofuels, ride your bike, march in protests, etc, you can still be a "lazy environmentalist." A little bit of simple research on what you consume, followed by a modicum of thought and judgement and your everyday spending habits can make a huge environmental impact (for better and for worse). This doesn't just apply to oil - ethical consumerism is something that needs to be mainstream - your consumption choices in everything impact the market, change how products are grown, made, traded, and sold and need to be made as responsibly as possible!
Boycott ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips!

California's Voters Make Dissapointing Decisions for the Environment

Well, looking at the results from the elections yesterday, it seems that we've done well to oust Republicans from control of the House and probably the Senate. Hopefully this well incite some change in direction for our country.
We have, however, failed to initiate one of the most important steps that we could have made towards solutions and change for global warming. By defeating Proposition 87, California voters have made the statement that the potential for small changes in their gas prices is more important than saving the planet from certain environmental catastrophe. California voters have chosen larger, less efficient cars, they have chosen to bless the oil companies with larger profits, they have chosen polluting coal-fired power plants over clean options such as wind and solar. The majority of California voters have chosen selfishness over the greater good. How utterly depressing. Despite thousands of our troops already dying in Iraq for a war partially motivated by our oil consumption, we Californians have spoken: Give let the oil companies have more money! We will consume the product that you take from our grounds and waters for free and fill your coffers no matter what the cost to the planet and society, as long as that cost isn't directly from our wallets. Like it or not, that is what we have stated by our votes or lack of voting.
My only hope is that with more education, effort, and time, the people of our country will choose to make a few personal sacrifices in the name of what is right and what is good for humanity. Hopefully it won't take another eye-opening environmental castastrophe like Katrina, another tsunami or the like to convince people. At the rate we're going though, unless we start passing legislation like Prop 87, we will be too late to reverse what we have done and see an environmental and economic upheaval the likes of which the world has never seen.
I encourage everyone to educate themselves using unbiased, scientific data on the state of our climate crisis, do not allow yourselves to be emotionally swayed by corporate fear tactics and make solid, logical decisions for our future.