This SUV is Blowin Up

Come on -- we've all had the same thought. With gas prices rising, and concerns over global warming at a peak, to see an SUV is to swing between pity for the driver's pocketbook, and a fantasy of what you might do to the SUV.

If the SUV in question is riding on the tail of a hybrid, as described by Phil Gutis, a few ideas come to mind.

Blow it up, say? Drive it off a cliff? Maybe.

Ryan Mickle, a San Diego native with a love of the environment, and a loathing for his Range Rover, is helping us live the dream.

He's set up a website -- onefewer.com -- in which he invites readers to suggest what he should do with his Range Rover. He doesn't want to sell it, because then someone else would be paying $5 a gallon and polluting the air, nor does he want to drive it into the Pacific.

Instead, he wants your suggestions. And once he has them, you'll be able to vote on what he does. Today, Monday, he's set to release some of the best ideas yet. You can subscribe to his RSS feed, or sign up for email updates. Or you can watch the video here.

Why, you ask, would Ryan throw away a $60,0000 car? "Because 16 mpg just aint good enough," he says in the video on his site. Elsewhere, he says: "One Fewer is an effort to take a single SUV, a 2006 Range Rover Sport, off the road forever. It's also about dropping out, being one fewer, giving up in the chase to be more by having less."

The scheme is driven by the concept of crowdsourcing, which relies on the contributions of a large, ill-defined group to help a company, or an individual, reach a decision. Sounds like a good idea -- sort of.

What if the people drawn to Ryan's maverick approach suggest plunging a few thousand pounds of metal and non-biodegradable plastics filled with chemicals into the ocean? Or what if they choose to set it on fire? The environmental damage of both would undermine the original motivation of preventing further environmental damage.

Wired, ever smitten with shiny industrial products, goes another has another take. "It seems almost sinful to destroy such a gorgeous piece of machinery, especially one that remains so useful even with its unnecessary opulence. The Range Rover is no ordinary kludge of an SUV. It's refined, gorgeous and extremely capable of handling itself in some of the harshest environments even if it is occasionally incapable of getting owners to work without a stop at the dealer."

I would agree: it would be almost sinful to destroy the SUV. But not simply because I share Wired's respect of the Range Rover. Instead, it is car with life left to live, and there are charities in desperate need of precisely this kind of vehicle. A friend of mine said it best with her suggestion:

Don't destroy your Range Rover -- that would only add to waste, and to the idea that environmentalists are all crazy tree-huggers. A lot of energy and materials went into making that vehicle, and it shouldn't be used to carry weekly groceries, but it should be put to proper use considering its capabilities.

Here's my idea for a proper use. Donate the RR to an organization that needs a rugged vehicle to transport people in need through back country or difficult terrain to get medical help or services in an emergency - think domestic Doctors without Borders. I'm sure this kind of NGO exists, whether it is a small, local one or a larger regional/national one like Red Cross. Plus, I think with any media attention or public support you generate, try to get a sponsorship from whatever local service dealer there is in the area that you donate it to for servicing the RR for the organization. Because any organization that needs that kind of vehicle won't be able to afford service costs for such a fancy-schmancy ride. The service center gets to publicize that they are helping people in need and you get to say that you have not contributed to demand for these vehicles by re-selling it -- and you might even get a tax write-off. You get the idea.

We can only hope Ryan, and the wisdom of the crowd, will have these motivations at heart.

Don't destroy it. Repurpose it, and give it to those who will use the Range Rover as it was designed: a car with purpose.

If all else fails, you could always use it as a garage for your Smart Car.

(Photo courtesy of Ryan Mickle, via Creative Commons license.)