A few days back, one of my friends sent me a link to check out. The gist of the link was to convince people to not drive their vehicle for 30th Jan 2011. And why?

Because “One day’s restraint cannot count all that much, you may say. In that case, you are wrong. Each minute step matters. And here, we are talking about a collective minute step. Let us breathe free on January 30. Let us help our earth breathe. Let us! “

Now while I couldn’t even begin ridiculing the intentions of the “No driving day” guy for almost three weeks, I have come out of shock and began thinking about it. I really tried hard to understand what good can be achieved by a group of people, 1000 or lesser, led by a random person on the internet to give up driving for a day (which, conveniently is a Sunday as well ). Why do people celebrate “earth hour” one hour once a year by switching off their lights? Why do people try to save tigers on the internet by blogging? Why do models go nude for PETA rather than wearing fur? (okay, that I understand)

We all know that the world today is suffering from a lot of problems, all this pollution in the air, the scarcity of energy, the sparsity of tigers and a thousand other things. Some people take these problems more seriously than others, and they know that if they propose any solution to the mass in which each individual will have to get out of their comfort zone, it is doomed to fail. So what do they do?

They just propose something which will make the followers feel that they are contributing to the cause, whereas they are just trivializing it and deluding themselves by going for a self righteous trip. They are just getting rid of their guilt of polluting the environment and congesting our roads very cheaply. Not driving on 30th Jan will not cause even 0.0001% change in overall traffic or pollution this month, this year, or ever. It won’t even make a statement. But participants will think that they have made an impact, while they’d have just made a fool of themselves. And they will gloat and laugh when they see you driving on 30th, and maybe even compel you to join them in this stupid crusade.

Proposal for my followers:
For not letting these people good about themselves, I propose my followers should drive twice on 30th Jan, simple. This way you can reverse the guilt and let them know that they have not done anything good for the environment. All their gloats are belong to us.

Proposal for “No driving day” followers:
Save some water as well guys, If you really want to feel good about yourself and help the environment, stop bathing 7 days a week and do it once a week. That way you will really have saved some water everyday. Too inconvenient?

In the words of George Carlin, “We’re so self-important. So self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now. ‘Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails.’ And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven’t learned how to care for one another, we’re gonna save the fucking planet?”