"pick your poison"

a common conversation in my mother's household is where to buy gasoline. i know, captivating dinner-table fun, right?

our family is pretty conscious of our environmental impact, and we try to support social systems that help more people than they harm, so choosing a gas station chain is one of those "lesser of many evils" decisions that we have to make. if, for example, i ever stopped at an exxon, my environmental-studies-major sister might disown me.

imagine my joy at finding the sierra club's article ranking the major oil companies for environmental impact: "pick your poison."

turns out, the least worst (best?) of the options in terms of environmental impact is sunoco, followed closely by bp. the worst worst are exxon and conoco-phillips, while shell, chevron, and citgo are all middle-of-the-road badish. of course, decisions about the source of the oil -- middle east vs. venezuela, for example -- are another thing altogether.