Live Earth 2007

I suppose it’s time for me to weigh in on the “Live Earth” event held this past weekend, though I find myself to be decidedly apathetic about the entire ordeal. I don’t feel moved. I don’t feel enlightened. I don’t feel aware. The 24-hour super-concert held around the world was designed to increase awareness about the perils of global warming and incite change on the world’s energy policies. While using more resources and generating more greenhouse gasses than most countries will in a year.

I think the concerts missed the mark on two major areas, but they were large enough blunders to bury the message under a mountain of public concern and scorn. They did not provide enough new information or any suggestions more sophisticated than flicking off the lights; and, although they did make small mention to the fact that changing x-amount of incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent would lead to X-amount of energy savings, they were not prepared to provide critics with a credible prediction for total expected energy-savings that all the Live Earth events worldwide would lead to, which would have convinced the sceptics that the energy used for the concerts was worth it.

I understand the argument given by the event organizers. This concert is similar to marketing: you need to spend money to make money. Likewise, you need to expend some energy to wake up a planet and encourage a movement to ultimately save more energy. But I watched the bands, I sat through the public service announcements and the only thing I learned was that cell phone chargers drain energy even when not charging, but still plugged in. In fact, that’s all anyone learned as far as I can tell. Every performer, when interviewed backstage and asked what they learned, repeated the cell phone charger bit. This is not to say that we should not follow the recommendations given. But please don’t insult me by assuming I didn’t know that turning off the lights would save energy.There was little information given about the possible repercussions of our energy-gobbling, unless you count two guys in polar bear suits complaining about the loss of the glaciers. We’re not idiots; we know if the temperature increases, ice will melt. But there was no more than a passing mention of the resulting rise in sea levels and the possible submersion of cities as a result of the melt, of the devastation to crops unsuited for a warmer climate, or the northward migration of organisms and diseases now able to thrive in the warmer northern regions which will throw the balance of the ecosystem further off-kilter than we ever could with poaching.There was no real mention of global movements that need to be initiated, no reference to government policy and what the country leaders are doing (or should be doing) to reverse the trend. No recommendations of what we can do to put pressure on our leaders to implement the policy changes needed, or to hold industry accountable for their destruction beyond a simple online petition. They simply didn’t push any boundaries, or inspire anyone else to do so.It is not to say that the performers present did not have the planet’s best interest at heart, but it is also not surprising that a lot of the big ticket musicians stayed home. And while I learned a lot about Al Gore’s marvelous gift of talking in circles, I learned little about the actual global phenomenon I was supposed to be learning about. A world-wide concert is simply not the most effective platform to present this issue, both for reasons of perceived hypocrisy and for the fact that the medium does not suit the audience that needs to be shaken the hardest: the policy makers, the industries, the governments and the leaders; not the 16-yr olds who were there to catch a glimpse of Linkin Park.

I guess I had better get back to waiting to see what the music industry tells me I need to be aware of next.