The Live Earth concerts were a series of music concerts held in major cities around the world on July 7th to raise awareness about global warming. They took place in New York, Washington D.C., London, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Tokyo, Hamburg, and Sydney and included such high-profile music acts as Madonna, Smashing Pumpkins, Kelly Clarkston, Bon Jovi, Kanye West, Dave Matthews, Fall Out Boy, and The Police.
The event was largely credited to Al Gore, former Vice President and current Chair of the Alliance for Climate Protection that helped to coordinate the Live Earth concerts. He was the political and popular face of the concert event and so also became the brunt of most of the criticism surrounding it.
Environmental critics largely focus on the hypocritical nature of the concerts: musicians and stars band together to preach the message of reducing global carbon emissions when they themselves spewed massive amounts of carbon in transportation, in merchandise, in lighting costs and electricity for the venues themselves. One article from the British Broadcasting online newsroom described the sentiment this way: "Responding to criticism that the event creates even more carbon emissions, organizers have insisted they were keeping the concerts as green as possible, with proceeds being spent on power-efficient light bulbs and other measures to offset the shows' emissions." yet "Thousands of plastic cups were left on the Wembley Stadium floor at the end of the London concert, despite organizers urging the audience to put them into recycling bins provided." ("Live Earth gigs Send Eco-Warning", BBC News) .
Which urges the second question from critics: How influential are these concerts anyway? Doubters point to the Live Aid concert of 1985, where dozens of big-name acts came together in the U.S. and the U.K. to raise money to end famine in Ethiopia. The event effectively raised around $100 million but only effectively distributed a portion of that money. The concerts, however sensational and entertaining, did not end famine in Ethiopia, and some say they even fueled conflict in the area by funding corrupt officials' repressive campaigns.
The Live Earth concert was not a fundraising event and so sidestepped most of that bureaucratic debacle - but then did it really achieve anything? I say yes, it did.
Its main goal – to raise awareness – was in my mind indisputably successful. The concerts took place on all seven continents and reached millions (the projected goal was two billion) of people worldwide. But even more importantly, it reached a certain and very vital audience: youth. Pop-culture enthusiasts today are the voters and legislators of the future. It is important to spread awareness about climate change to politicians of the present, but, as this issue has shown us, we must also think long term and inform the leaders of the future.
I also think of some of my family and friends – good people who may shrug off global warming simply because they do not hear much about it in their culture. Live Earth is their culture. It's what they listen to in their cars, in their rooms, on iPods. Just getting people thinking about it, believing it, is the first step. End denial. Start curiosity.
Mass interest leads to politician interest that leads to policy change that leads to effective global warming reversal. Mass interest also leads to business interest that leads to more eco-conscious products to fuel demand that helps the environment.
Environmental die-hards sometimes underestimate the power of cool. Cool makes women change their whole wardrobe and men trade in a year old BMW for the new version with satellite traffic updates. Green is becoming cool. It is true that some of it is way misguided – the idea isn’t to trade in your SUV for two hybrids, or buy five pairs of organic cotton jeans, or build your second home with solar panels and recycled wood, though all these things are good practices. The idea is to cut back. Reduce. Trade for one hybrid, buy one pair of jeans instead of five.
However, green consumerism is better than nothing. It is a good first step.
True, America and West in general have a long way to go. But to expect us to overhaul our whole system in a year or less is idealistic. Shifting the focus of the current system of rabid consumerism to rabid green consumerism is just the beginning. Baby steps.
The West will need constant urging and prodding to get there, but change is inevitable. You just have to speak on a wavelength we can understand – that’s what Al Gore is trying to do. Radio waves to brain waves. Baby steps.
The environmental critics are frustrating by slow action. But they should count it as a small victory that people are starting to cite “environmental critics” in the first place. Just a few years ago, we would not have consulted them at all.