When I first read about “Blog Action Day” (BAD) - an event asking bloggers around the world to “unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment” - an image came into my mind of the fasces, that tied bundle of sticks the Romans used to show unity and strength in numbers: one stick is easy to snap, went the thinking, a bundle almost impossible. What a great idea: a unified effort to promote something that we bloggers seem to care strongly about. And yet…

I hate to be a killjoy at the party, but the more I’ve thought about BAD, the less enthused I’ve become, especially now that I’ve looked further into what BAD hopes to achieve. On the surface, putting that “single important issue on everyone’s mind” is wholly laudable and inclusive - but surely it’s just too ‘feelgood’ and vague when you look deeper?

Those niggling concerns have grown, too, since I read on the BAD homepage that as of 14 October there are now “15,000 blogs and websites participating”. That’s one huge bundle of sticks, but I have to wonder - just what sort of message can over 15,000 blogs/sites put out when the subject is so staggeringly broad as “the environment”? The organisers say that they “have selected the environment as the 2007 theme both for the clarity of its importance and the undeniable urgency that issues like global warming and pollution have. It is an issue that can relate to virtually any subject, any blog and anybody“. Hard to disagree with such sentiments, but what do they actually mean? Posts on “global warming” would already fill a cyber-library, and there are more “issues” to discuss than there are bloggers. How is anyone is supposed to sift through the thoughts of 15,000 people - the vast majority of whom like me will have no formal background in science, and will be putting out much the same received-wisdoms and thoughts as everyone else - and pull out anything of lasting consequence?

14,999 bloggers may disagree with me and point to the fact that so many people obviously care is heart-warming in itself: but didn’t we know that already? Thousands upon thousands of posts have been written for today, but numbers - sadly - aren’t an indication of quality, and if the message isn’t powerful, unified, and extremely cogent, how will anything of any substance be heard (and God knows it needs to be)? I’ve been party to enough discussions to know that if you put three ‘greens’ in a room and ask them to discuss “the environment” an argument will follow. The climatologist will want to talk about global warming, the ornithologist about the impending mass extinction of the world’s birds, the economist about ways to save money by incorporating “green initiatives” into business models. An ecologist listening in might ask what we understand by “environment” anyway, and the semantic might just say “it’s that which is all around us”. Five voices we can just about listen to and respond to: 15,000?

I enjoy blogging (obviously), and I enjoy reading blogs, but I’m not sure that many of us bloggers are truly capable of setting agendas or of changing anything - especially when you consider that according to Technorati 100,000 new blogs are created every day, and that there are somewhere around 70 million blogs in existence. Suddenly 15,000 blogs AND websites doesn’t seem so significant. And having a blog online doesn’t mean that it’s being read or influencing anyone anyway, no matter how well-written or researched. When “The Times of London” was arguably the most authoritative voice on the planet it was not simply because it was well-written or well-researched, it was because everyone “who mattered” read it. Establishment figures, parliamentarians, industrialists, people who agreed and who disagreed with the political slant of the newspaper, all took “The Times”, discussed it, and acted on it.

An unfair comparison? “The Times” existed in a world where there were very few media outlets, you might say, of course everyone read it. Which is exactly the point I’m making. Can a difference today really be made by a whole bunch of us disparate bloggers telling mainly other bloggers who already know to use low-energy lightbulbs or to drive more slowly or not to buy tuna? How many developments will be halted, how many wetlands will NOT be reclaimed, how many bird/insect/flower species will not go extinct because the CEO of a major corporation checked their feeds, read a Blog Action Day post, and decided to change their ways? Even the heroically prolific Treehugger doesn’t have that sort of clout - the rest of us will never get even remotely close. Let’s be honest here, on an international scale our readership is miniscule, mainly English-speaking, and we’re talking to people who think like we do anyway (no matter how well-written I’m not going to be clicking on a blog called “George Bush is Right!” any day soon).

Another of the stated aims of BAD is that “Blog Action Day is not-for-profit and exists solely to facilitate bloggers getting together to create a better world“. Bloggers can “create a better world”? I’d love to think so but have a look at how many tens of thousands of bloggers wrote about the military crackdown in Burma last month and ask yourself where the corrupt and insane clique of generals running the country are today? I am perhaps being harsh (those immediately around me certainly think so), but surely I’m not alone in thinking that some bloggers are starting to take their blogging a little too seriously. The bloggers I’ve been fortunate enough to meet or correspond with have all been thoroughly decent, well-meaning people (and hopefully that opinion is reciprocated), but ‘world-changers’? Blogs are undoubtedly fun, many are interesting, well-written, and informative, and I know that many of us feel desperately that we need to do SOMETHING - but I have a feeling that where the environment is concerned blogging is drifting towards being used as a substitute for direct action or activism, that we’re beginning to think that that by writing about something we can initiate change. 99.99% of us bloggers can’t (and I include myself in that number).

The organisers have worked hard to promote BAD, and they of course deserve huge credit for developing the concept in the first place. Hopefully the mainstream media - which is where most of the world’s non-bloggers get their information - will pick up on the event and talk about how “11,000+ voices came together to support the environment” (whatever that means). Time will tell of course, and now that the United Nations is on board there must be every chance. I just wish though that the action we’ve been asked to take had been narrowed and the aim more targeted.

It’s unfair to be negative without making alternative suggestions - so how about next year we put our egos aside and all of us environmentally-concerned bloggers sign beneath a professionally-written post on a BAD nominated blog that really is well-read? That may possibly have some sort of impact. To be fair to the organisers they do make the suggestion that potential participants could “commit to donating their day’s advertising earnings to an environmental charity of their choice” instead of blogging; I’ve no data to back this up, but going by how much I know I’ve ever “earned” as a blogger most writers wouldn’t even cover the PayPal commission if they did that. How about instead we all sign a pledge to send in 10GBP/20USD to a BAD nominated charity? By my reckoning that would be enough to buy a sizeable chunk of threatened tropical forest.

The “environment” - as in “the world around us” - is (IMHO) the single most important issue facing life on earth today. Every single initiative or project or event that helps people to think about how they fit into the environment, how they impact on it, and how they use it is critically important. In light of that I sincerely hope BAD is the beginning of a global movement that really does change the world - but there have been many false dawns and mis-directed efforts lately (’Live Earth’ anyone?) and a whole lot of financially-driven and short-sighted destruction. We need concentrated and focussed effort, and plenty of it. I may well be wrong but when an event adopts such a “broad-church approach” there’s a real possibility that its message will get so diluted it won’t be recognisable - let alone have an effect.

Of course many ‘green’ bloggers already do far more for “the environment” than just write the odd post, but my genuine belief is that the only people who can save our planet from meltdown are researchers, activists who ‘get out there’, and figures with real influence (eg Nobel Laureate Al Gore). We need to be funding them and supporting them (getting out and voting at the next elections would help if you’re wondering what you can do) - writing about “the environment” is a start, but it simply isn’t going to be enough. If any of us are to survive “issues like global warming and pollution” we need to take real “Action” and spend real money - and we need to do it now.