North Star Writers Group

If numbers are any indication, it would seem that if you weren’t attending a wedding this past Saturday, the day of three lucky sevens, you were watching Live Earth. For the concert, geared toward inciting a fight against climate change, 10 million people worldwide tuned in on the Internet alone. New British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called Live Earth as large and as vital as the global Live8 and Live Aid concerts. The largest crowd of the series, in Rio de Janeiro, topped out at 400,000 people.

The event, with climate-crisis pioneer Al Gore at the forefront, featured concerts in nine cities: New York, Washington D.C., London, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Hamburg, Johannesburg, Sydney and Tokyo – much like the format of the Live Aid anti-hunger concerts held in 1985. Only this time, the Internet ensured that those without tickets, or even cable, were able to tune in.

Musical acts such as Foo Fighters, Shakira, Alicia Keyes, Metallica, The Police and a band of British Antarctic Surveyors called Nunatak – who performed on a frozen ice shelf – belted out their hits, with environmental short films and celebrity messages broadcast between acts.

As expected, criticisms abound from those on both sides of the global warming issue. First, there’s the jet-fuel used to transport pampered stars around the globe, stars from which we’ve never heard a peep about global warming until now. Then, there’s the sheer amount of waste a concert of this scale produces in terms of garbage. Not to mention the gas people use to get from their homes to the concert venues, or the energy used to power their computers to watch the show online. And what about all those potato chip bags and pop cans that people around the globe will discard after watching the show from their living room? The horror!

Madonna, the headliner of the London show at Wembley Stadium, faced perhaps the harshest critics, other than Al Gore of course, because she has over $2 million invested in companies linked to oil production, exploration and refinement. Al Gore faced similar condemnation when stories of his personal energy consumption threatened to trump his message.

In situations like this, celebrities and causes just don’t quite jibe. There’s something insulting about having a millionaire telling you how to allocate your money, whether it be suggested donations to charities hoping to curb the AIDS epidemic or funds spent on a specific sort of light bulb. Let’s not forget Sheryl Crow’s toilet paper sound bite, which is likely to become entwined in the global climate change movement. Unfortunately, detractors of anti-global warming efforts were itching for reasons to criticize, and Live Earth has given plenty. For people who don’t seem to believe global warming exists, they sure do get riled up at how much celebrities and concerts contribute to it.

As for the pollution caused as a result of the concerts, Al Gore made reasonable headway in trying to explain, as he did in regard to his own energy expenditures a few months ago. Renewable electric energy sources were used at Live Earth. LED light bulbs replaced standard lights for stage lighting. And as much waste as possible would be collected from the venues and recycled. Certainly, this is more than any other concert can claim. It is Al Gore’s hope that other concerts will follow the Live Earth example.

Yes, people drove their cars, used gas and powered their computers. But they would have done all of these things anyway, just for different reasons. The pollution caused by people commuting to and from weddings on Saturday (more weddings were held on 7-7-07 than on any other day since World War II ended), not to mention the landfills that will now be brimming with empty beer bottles from all those open bars, will surely trump the expenditures of Live Earth.

What was important was the message. Concerts like Live Earth go a long way in creating solidarity, giving the public a reason to go out and buy LED light bulbs, or at least getting them talking about buying LED light bulbs. If Live Earth had not taken place, people would have still thought about global warming on Saturday, but because of the concert, a lot of those people were brought together. It makes the fight seem worth fighting when you know that a billion people agree with you. The celebrity factor of Live Earth has left a lot to be desired, but if there’s something that unites people across cultures, it’s the celebrities that we take such pleasure in exalting and insulting.

As for me, I was at a wedding this Saturday and missed out. But fortunately for me and the rest of us, the discussion of climate change will not end with Live Earth.

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