Live Earth In Perspective
They rocked the world, but as the clean-up at nine climate-change gigs around the globe wraps up, many wonder if the galaxy of pop stars did much to change it.And so begins one of many ‘did it really do anything’ news pieces, this one from The Globe & Mail. Let’s take a look at a few.
…The image of Ludacris rhyming about gas-guzzling SUVs under the Live Earth banner was almost comical. And then there’s Madonna, who headlined Live Earth’s London show at Wembley Stadium, one of nine concerts on seven continents. Madge has an annual carbon imprint a hundred times greater than that of the average human thanks to her nine homes, fleet of cars, and the exhaust-spewing army of buses, semis, and jets used on tours. Still, to complain about the performers’ shortcomings as environmentalists is to miss the point. They weren’t enlisted as role models. They were there to deliver an audience…-Boston Globe
“If you wanna save the planet, jump up and down!” urged Madonna. Can global warming be stopped by an out-of-breath, middle-aged, super-rich narcissist in a leotard and high heels? The superannuated pop queen was certainly up for the challenge, but judging by the negligible response to the text message number displayed on stage, I suspect the public may have been justifiably confused by the link between aerobics and the environment.
For the millions of Africans who live in makeshift shacks and struggle to feed their families, global warming may not seem like a top priority. But pop stars performing at the Johannesburg leg of the Live Earth concerts said on Friday Africa could end up suffering most from climate change and pleaded with the world to help protect the poorest continent by doing their bit for the environment…Global warming has already begun to bite in Africa as the effects of extreme weather such as cyclones and droughts prompt poor, rural Africans to move to cities in an often chaotic wave of urbanisation, officials say.
Is anybody else feeling guilty about not feeling much of anything while watching the Live Earth concerts this weekend? More than 150 musical acts spread out across the planet – London, New York, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hamburg – to help save us from environmental catastrophe and … nothing? Not one spark of inspiration during this 24-hour ecopalooza? Not one galvanizing moment during the exhaustive coverage? Not one rousing call to action during this tedious marathon of song and activism? (“Rousing” being the operative word.) Organizers claim more than 2 billion people watched the concerts on television, the Internet and elsewhere, a number that will surely “trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis.” Really? How might this happen?
Nathan was thinking green at 8:41 AM on July 9, 2007
Comments are sorta kinda broken right now. We're working on it but to save energy can only work in daytime when solar system is at peak performance.
