Our dependence on foreign oil is our modern day Achilles' heel. It puts our country in a growing position of weakness; it threatens our daily existence and our way of life. As if that isn’t enough, our dependence on fossil fuel as a source of energy negatively impacts our environment and contributes to the climate changes we have been experiencing for decades. The volume of greenhouse gases emitted by the fossil fuels used by our global economy has tipped the scale of what used to be a balanced ecosystem.

My name is Ellen McNeill and I'm a former motivational speaker who lives in Fletcher, North Carolina, USA, about 35 minutes south of Asheville. My husband Michael and I created this website because we wanted to do something about rising gas prices and the negative effect of fossil fuels on the environment. We came up with the idea of No Gas on Wednesdays for NRG Awareness. (NRG is an acronym for National, Regional, and Global awareness of energy issues.) We thought that not buying gas on a particular day of the week might serve as a memory jogger to conserve the rest of the time.

Our concept is simple and it's based on the following -- we must Conserve gasoline, Conserve energy, and Conserve our environment for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, and all future generations. And we need to do this even when there isn’t a gas crisis. It's important that we all increase our NRG Awareness -- National, Regional, and Global.

When Michael and I talked about this we began to realize that we have a personal responsibility to focus on using energy wisely as a habit, not as a knee-jerk reaction to a price gas increase. So, we created a challenge for ourselves -- change our consuming habits into conserving habits.

Our initiative isn't just limited to not purchasing gas on Wednesdays. It's No Gas on Wednesdays for NRG Awareness and for NRG Awareness overall. This means that you concentrate on purchasing less gasoline during the week, not that you fill up on Tuesdays or Thursdays instead of Wednesdays.

You may believe that NRG awareness and a concern about conservation is a given for the majority of us. I don't believe it is. Our interest may be sincere, but it's generally not followed by action. The main reason is that we all have a lot on our plates -- Work, business, relationships, kids, elderly parents, and the challenges of life in general. We're just too busy to think about how we're going to fit everything in, let alone our effect on the environment and doing something about it.

Until recently, Michael and I weren't really conscious about our personal gas consumption, energy use in general, or the problem of global warming. Truthfully, as embarrassing as it seems now, we didn't think these issues affected us personally. I personally "tuned out" when any conversation even remotely turned to conservation, global warming, or concern for our environment. After all, I felt, I recycle and turn lights off when they're not in use. Isn't that enough?

We're now faced with fluctuating gas prices that affect where we vacation, when we'll be able to buy that new car, or how often we eat out. Until recently, the price of filling up got so expensive that it was dubbed “pain at the pump.” It's easy to forget that when the price of gasoline keeps going down.

But Big Oil doesn't seem to be feeling any pain. They're posting record profits for the oil industry and more than any company on record has made in one quarter. Are they gouging? No one really knows for sure, but I did some research I'd like to share with you.

What I learned is that it’s the volume of crude oil that’s demanded, both here in the U.S. and globally, that contributes to Big Oil’s coffers. Oil companies make their money from pumping oil from the ground, not from selling gasoline. Oil has to be refined into different products, one of which is gasoline. The oil companies pay high prices for a barrel of oil and have to sell at a profit or there's no point in staying in business. (See, High Gas Prices--Why? on this website.)

Even the Federal Trade Commission, an organization with far more resources than I, announced a couple of months ago that its most recent investigation determined that the American public is not being gouged by Big Oil. (In fact, the FTC has initiated more than a dozen studies to investigate the allegation of gouging. Future studies by the FTC and others may reveal more or contradictory evidence, but for now this is what is being reported.)

Gas prices, which are primarily based on the law of supply and demand, are also based on other factors such as:

A loss of focus on conserving energy directly affects our country's demand for oil. Global demand for oil impacts the price we pay for gas in the United States. It's not the amount of oil we demand here, it's the demand globally. It's as simple as that. When you combine this with the factors above, the result is higher gas prices -- pain at the pump.

So, if we cannot personally affect supply, can we reduce demand on any appreciable level? I believe we can, by conserving gasoline and conserving our energy use overall. (And we'll be preserving our environment at the same time.) No Gas on Wednesdays for NRG Awareness and NRG Awareness was created to help us remember to conserve and we hope it will do the same for you.

Some may fear that No Gas on Wednesdays will negatively impact independent gas station owners and their overall profit. That would be true if all drivers took on our challenge. Of course, that isn't likely. The goal is to buy less gasoline because we’re using less gasoline so we can reduce our personal impact on the environment (and save some money at the same time). What's the bottom line? Conserving gasoline and reducing our dependence on foreign oil is far more important than someone's P&L statement.

In the May 2006 issue of Fast Company, writer Pip Coburn, in his article entitled The Change Function, wrote, “People change habits when the pain of their current situation exceeds their perceived pain of adopting a possible solution. I call this the ‘change function.’ It may seem simplistic. It’s supposed to be.” Further, Coburn writes, “Change is an emotion-laden process. Disrupting … Most of us despise being disrupted and don’t wish to be game-changed.” As you've probably guessed by now, consistent gasoline and energy conservation will take some work and commitment. Anything worthwhile in life does.

Life, as we know it, will continue to change and challenge us. Even though we can’t control the future, we can impact it. It's important to remember that just as every vote makes a difference so does every driver.

quote from TV producer and environmentalist Laurie David puts the essence of our approach to conserving gasoline and energy in context: “It’s not a matter of doing everything. It’s a matter of doing something.”

We hope you will take on the challenge of NRG Awareness and change your gasoline consuming habits into gasoline conserving habits.

If you agree with our approach to gasoline conservation, would you help us create some “buzz?” You can increase the difference you'll make by helping us spread the word about No Gas on Wednesdays for NRG Awareness and for NRG Awareness overall? Tell your family, friends, and colleagues about this website. If you have a website of your own, put a link to us on your links page. We’d really appreciate your help.

P.S. If you’d like to share the concept of No Gas on Wednesdays for NRG Awareness or NRG Awareness overall -- and you like clothing that makes a statement -- see our NRG Awareness Apparel. We have caps, tee shirts, sweatshirts, polo shirts, and iron-on patches.

PLEASE NOTE: To provide you with the best and latest information possible, Ellen researched and reviewed hundreds of links on the Internet. The content she found was so well-written and comprehensive that the only way to bring you the best information available was to compile it by "cutting, pasting, and gently editing," so we admit that we have borrowed liberally. We have no intention to take credit for someone else's work. We've done our best to give credit where it is due by providing links to the valuable sources we used on our links page. We recommend that you take the time to visit these links for additional information. If you are the author of any of the information we use and you do not want a reference to your website or repetition of your content, please advise us and we will remove that information from our website.