By Bruce Mulliken, Green Energy News.

After the Valdez spill I boycotted Exxon for years. It made me feel better, but the company continued to thrive without my gasoline purchases. Yet the company, now ExxonMobil, is still tainted from the spill more than 20 years ago.

The damage from a boycott to BP as a global corporation may be minimal, at least in the short run. It’s more likely that a local business owner would be hurt from reduced sales, than the massive company itself. The local BP filling station is a franchise, owned and operated by someone who could be, well, your neighbor. BP exited the retail gasoline business two years ago.

In the long run BP will have the same taint that Exxon has, with or without a boycott. People will remember the messed up Gulf of Mexico for decades.

Gavan Fitzsimons, Professor of marketing and psychology at Duke University, says boycotting BP offers an immediate psychological boost to consumers and a long term impact to the company.

From a psychological standpoint…

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