Sure, boycott BP. Then what?

Every day seems to deliver one more woe to us, courtesy of BP. Perhaps it's trouble capping BP's gushing Gulf of Mexico oil well today. Or instead it's a report on the environmental damage, or the company reveals more unpreparedness and indifference to safety, or it makes one more tone-deaf public response. Anti BP websites and Facebook groups abound, but it's not like the sentiment really needs a whole lot of spurring on at this point. Saddam Hussein had better PR.
A boycott seems like the natural reaction. Anyone who can look at a white-and-green BP logo at their local gas station and not think twice about tanking up isn't thinking at all. It would take an organized effort to avert a boycott.
Let's start with the argument for a boycott, small business owners be damned. BP owns about 200 of the 10,000 BP branded stations in the US. The independent station owners have, ostensibly, profited from their relationship with BP. Most of the time, a gas station owner has some choice about the brand with which they're going to contract. No one forced these guys at gunpoint to raise a BP logo over their station.
Associating your business with someone else's brand is a business risk. These entrepreneurs made money when things were good. Perhaps they should take their lumps when things go bad.
A hue and a cry arose with talk about BP cutting their dividend to fund disaster relief. What about the pensioners who depend on dividend checks? What about the pension funds that will be forced to sell off shares? They didn't do anything wrong -- why punish them?
Well, if you own stock in a company, you own a piece of their moral failings, regardless of your reasons for owning the shares. If some little old lady from Brighton happened to be deriving her income from investments in Blackwater (now XE), I wouldn't shed a tear if the company went under in a wave of murder charges and she lost her hat in the resulting stock crash.
Owning a BP station is a similar, direct investment. The station owners are betting on BP's success for their own success. Perhaps they should share in the results of BP's moral failings as well.
So, sure. Go ahead. Boycott BP. It's painless. Be careful, though. BP also sells gas under the AM/PM brand, Arco, and Amoco Ultimate. Other stations might use BP gas as well -- it can all get mixed together by wholesalers, at times. BP sells petroleum products under the Castrol brand. It has a division selling asphalt, natural gas and solar power services, if you want to be comprehensive.
And then, buy your gas from … whom? The folks at Newsweek have a good roundup of your moral choices.
Exxon/Mobil apparently still hasn't made a full restitution to fishermen in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. It also seems to have an unhealthy influence over political decisions on energy policy. Chevron and Texaco merged in 2005. Texaco is being sued in Ecuador for allegedly contaminating the groundwater. Shell Oil has been polluting the environment of Nigeria for years and has a legacy of supporting corrupt governments there. Former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha hanged nine environmental activists in 1999 after they criticized Shell's exploitation and the collusion of the government. Citgo is the state-controlled oil company of Venezuela, and it answers to the repressive President Hugo Chavez. Even now, BP doesn't even make the short list of the most hated companies in America, according to 24/7 Wall Street's recent analysis. That honor goes to AIG.
Some business ethicists start from a philosophical position that is an austere conclusion -- that all participation in the economy is inherently immoral, because eventually your money goes through enough hands to enrich an immoral actor.
It goes like this: Boycott BP? Great! The gas stations? OK. How about the bank that financed the Deepwater Horizon? Why not, they profited too. How about shipping companies doing business with BP? Television stations that carry BP apologia in advertising? How about manufacturers using BP oil in products, like plastic toy makers? BP's accountants? It goes on. How about all the businesses that do business with those businesses?
At some point, if you wish to participate in the economy, you have to accept that you're going to enrich someone who profits from an evil deed.
Formally or informally, we're boycotting BP gas stations because they're a direct visible link to BP -- they carry BP's branding and sell BP products directly. But what could the station owners have possibly known about the problems with BP and safety? A better question: how responsible should we hold them for not knowing? Did they have a duty to know?
Do we have a duty to know?
A boycott probably misses the point. The real problem is our dependence on fossil fuels as the basis for modern civilization. The better decision, I think, requires more sacrifice than driving up the street to the next gas station. We need to use less gas. Bike when you would drive, take a bus or a train, telecommute, buy a gas-efficient vehicle. For all the posturing and the outrage, the justified desire for an accounting and restitution, let us not forget how this all started. BP was drilling because we want cheap gas. In the ways that matter, we brought this on ourselves.