Oh, yeah, sure. Every Saturday morning I put on my Carhartts and boots and sweatshirt and hat and bug dope and sun screen and work gloves, and go from house to house knocking on doors and handing out stove manuals. Sometimes people see me coming and pull the curtains (maybe it's the chainsaw?), but I know that someday when the price of fuel oil hits $10 a gallon, they will wish they had listened. If they aren't home, or won't open the door, I leave a bag on their doorknob full of wood shavings.
Seriously, though, it's not so much a question of converting as conversing. I'm more surprised by how many people have woodstoves, so instead of preaching, I'm preaching to the choir. I think it has something to do with where I live--long winters here, long stretches where it can be -30, -40F for extended periods, and the big price run-up of 2008 hit us hard. Now the price that had us gasping then is the norm today, and I think that was just the oil companies running up a test balloon.
You know the old saw about the difference between the pig and the chicken when it comes to breakfast? The chicken's involved, the pig's committed? Up here, we don't have the luxury of not taking this subject seriously. When the gasket failed on my stove door last winter, it was -40 outside and I had no alternative heat (thanks again, gyrfalcon, for staying up and walking me through that repair job that night), and I was facing fixing the stove or draining the pipes and getting us out of there that night. At those temps, we're committed.
An interesting article with an interesting spin:
http://newsminer.com/bookmark/8754507 Check out aurorawatcher's comment near the bottom.
Here's a site that was getting a lot of traffic back in the oil run-up as well. Again, check out the comments at the bottom.
http://www.fairbanksgas.com/
Saturday morning, so it's time to get out there and start converting--or maybe I better just go chop some wood now . . .