Ah, Blog Action Day. A day of declaration. A day of inspired words about how to save the planet. A day when thousands of well-meaning but misdirected bloggers around the world participate in a huge electronic circle-jerk and everyone goes home sticky and feeling used.

Three cheers for the euphoric inaction of the masses.

Don’t get me wrong — I love baby seals. I just can’t eat a whole one by myself.

The environmental crisis: Mother Nature’s way of possibly eliminating from her system one of the most annoying of parasites all the while the fleas attempt to analyze, test, and make plans for repairing the dog while still being able to suck blood at an alarming rate. “Compact Fluorescents!” they yell with exuberance. Net effect? Some hillbilly down in Kentucky, noticing the sudden drop in his electrical bill, upgrades his lamp to a 100 watt bulb. Such advances must be truly exhausting for the folks at Greenpeace.

I could not be pegged to be much of a die-hard for end-user environmentalism; it strikes me sour like the Democratic Party’s traditional way of approaching social ills such as poverty, jobless rates, and healthcare. The attitude of caring for the end instead of fixing the means turns rancid after a few iterations and people start realizing that bailing out the Titanic with a wineglass probably isn’t going to benefit the masses in the long run.

Likewise, whilst all of the bloggers out there today typing feverishly have the best of intentions and may even spark someone to think a little, their mutual clickity-clack orgy of plastic and electrons won’t remove the swimming pool that has suddenly appeared in the first-class dining room. While peace, love, and universal happiness practically streams out of the sparkling fiber today, I’m a little miffed by the fact that the train keeps on chugging despite the cow on the catcher, no matter how much she moos.

Where, then, should efforts be placed? This is the question on everyone’s mind; or, at least, should be, whether you are making your reforms for the true benefit of your planet or as a publicity stunt for The Corporation. The answer ends up being just as obscure as the data that assails us from every angle about the problems that currently exist, how they are issues, where they come from, and who is responsible. The glass covering the donations bin is at least as smoky if not more obscure than the windows on the world in the first place.

The first rung in the ladder that we climb is You. If you are a normal human being, you may read some of the postings for Blog Action Day, perhaps even muse about them, and then promptly jump into your gas-powered car and drive home tonight. Don’t worry — so will I. In fact, most of us will. Only the very few folks out there who have chosen to follow a life outside of mainstream society will be bicycling or riding a hemp-powered scooter or floating home in a hydrogen balloon. I certainly don’t think less of you because you’re doing what you have to do to stay alive and make your way, but it points to a greater influence than your simple vehicle choice.

You begin to climb the ladder of cause and effect as you move away from the reasons why you drive to work, or take public transportation, or other means. People have to get to work from places far removed from their jobs. They live at those places because they’re cheaper or nicer or safer than closer places. They are nicer/safer/closer because they’re newer. They’re newer because someone built them recently. Someone built them because they figured they could make money, and they did so because people with good jobs bought them. But now those people have to get to their jobs. Et voila. Haven’t we been here before?

The problems in environmental reform aren’t easy to pinpoint, but everyone seems to have a good idea of what they might be. Global warming. Pollution. Natural resources. Endangered species. Yet, when you really explore each of these, you discover that the reasons are problems can go backwards up a long chain of responsibility and causal relationships ad infinitum. This is not to say that a reasonable and impactable point can’t be found along each of these to effect change, it simply means that it may not be the most obvious, cheapest, or simplest. Teaching the masses to use hybrid cars isn’t always a win-win situation. There are real, economic, political, and psychological reasons for the way some things are and a movement to buy organic goods may not be effective enough to make a difference to those where their situations simply prevent them from taking a similar step.

So, the day will progress much as any other does, with cheery little blog postings smattering the ‘net and making those squishy little sounds that warm, sloppy kisses make upon landing on the lips of easy opportunity, and pupils will scan and twitch and read and comment until everyone has filled up their own buckets of responsibility and goodness to the brim, sighing contentedly. A few lights will be turned off quicker tonight; water will cease running for a few seconds less at every toothbrushing, and cars may be driven a little less forcefully on the commute home. But tomorrow is a new day — a new start for the world — and has anything really changed at all?