Live Earth? More Like Live Trash!

I have it on good authority from an eye-witness to the Live Earth events:

The go-green, stop-global-warming, save-the-environment, eco-awareness, tree-hugging message of Live Earth was so strong and clear that the audience responded by enthusiastically leaving tons of litter all over the venue.

No doubt the extravagantly wasteful-living pop & rock stars played their part in encouraging people to love the Earth.

All the totally annoying advertisements sure were effective in bringing out the worst in people – and I’m not talking about my cynical, critical and sarcastic attitude either.

How much of this eco-unfriendly litter will be recycled, I wonder? Once all the cameras and green-sane audience have left the scene, will the Live Earth organizers even bother to dispose of their trash in a green manner? No witnesses.

And not to mention the megatons of fallout (carbon dioxide and other pollutants) that are emitted by setting up the concert infrastructure, stage lights, flying in artistes from across the world in private jets, audience members flying and driving to the concert location, TV sets on all day…

Being a cynical skeptic, somewhat a pessimist and very much a pragamatic realist – I have to say that I saw this coming. Especially with this ‘green’ concert as a precedent.So I make this prediction: Live Earth will, and has, utterly failed to change the mindset of even 0.0383% of the purported 2 billion people who watched the events. Unless you count ‘teach them to waste resources and dump trash on the ground’.

(0.0383% is the percentage of CO2 out of the atmosphere, btw. Such a huge amount surely will destroy the planet, according to the kings of polluters – Al Gore’s Live Earth team, yessssssss. But wait! CO2 is increasing by miniscule amounts! Wow!)

(Wait again! Although CO2 is not a real problem, concert-organizers who intend to fight CO2 with a series of concerts that hypocritically produce more CO2 than most developing nations IS a problem!)

Let me say this yet again (and I doubt I’ll ever get tired of it): The self-proclaimed, so-called champions and supporters of stopping global warming are the biggest Earth-destroying polluters of all!

If you have ANY environmental ethics, natural morals or love for the Earth at all… You must NOT give any support to environmental super-hypocrites like Al Gore, Kevin Wall, Madonna, et al.

I tell you the truth, the only green they really care about is greenback US Dollar bills in their fat, bulging, carbon-emitting pockets.

And now, lots of links and related material… Enjoy, and let your cynicism and skepticism pour forth like torrents of… CO2!!!!

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My edit of the Live Earth logo.

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Cartoons by Michael Ramirez 9 & 10 July 2007. Click to view full size.

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By Mike Shelton 13 July 2007.

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Passing shot at Gorey Earth by Day by Day 11 July 2007

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And many, many more cartoons mocking Lie Live Earth at the top section of Global Warming Editorial Cartoons! 

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From Is It Getting Warmer?, a post about a report which claims it will take the planting of 100,000 trees to offset the carbon footprint of Live Earth. Also why the blog author feels carbon offsets are not the way to go about improving the situation.

In another post, the meaninglessness of Live Earth’s message towards poor, starving, energy-short, suffocating, water-borne disease suffering Africans is detailed.

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A long article from Daily Mail 7 July 2007 calculates that:

– The most conservative assessment of the flights being taken by its superstars is that they are flying an extraordinary 222,623.63 miles between them to get to the various concerts – nearly nine times the circumference of the world.

– The total carbon footprint of the event, taking into account the artists’ and spectators’ travel to the concert, and the energy consumption on the day, is likely to be at least 31,500 tonnes of carbon emissions.

– Throw in the television audience and it comes to a staggering 74,500 tonnes. In comparison, the average Briton produces ten tonnes in a year.

– The concert will also generate some 1,025 tonnes of waste at the concert stadiums – much of which will go directly into landfill sites.

– The Daily Mail has found that five of the top performing acts together have an annual output of almost 2,000 carbon tonnes. Madonna alone has an annual carbon footprint of 1,018 tonnes.

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And here’s a report from The Star/Reuters July 8 2007:

Earth underwhelmed by environment pop extravaganza

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON (Reuters) – They rocked the world, but as the clean-up at nine climate change gigs around the globe begins, many wonder if the galaxy of pop stars did much to change it.

U.S. and British media were generally underwhelmed on Sunday by Live Earth, the mega-concert organised by former U.S. vice president and green campaigner Al Gore, which, though built on the model of Live Aid and Live 8, created a less positive buzz.

Madonna performs during the Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium in London, July 7, 2007. They rocked the world, but as the clean-up at nine climate change gigs around the globe begins, many wonder if the galaxy of pop stars did much to change it. (REUTERS/Stephen Hird)

In Germany, however, newspapers were more upbeat about Saturday’s gigs designed to pressure leaders to sign a new treaty by 2009 that would cut global warming pollution by 90 percent in rich nations and more than half worldwide by 2050.

Several articles examined the green credentials of artists on the day, including Madonna, whose annual “carbon footprint” was estimated at around 100 times the average Briton’s.

The News of the World tabloid, Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper, detailed estimates of Madonna’s carbon emissions from nine houses, a fleet of cars, a private jet and the Confessions tour, calling her a “climate-change catastrophe”.

The Sunday Telegraph quoted U.S. reports of her alleged financial links to companies accused of being major polluters.

Her spokeswoman in Britain was not immediately available for comment, but in a statement appearing in the Independent on Sunday, her New York spokeswoman said:

“Madonna’s agreeing to sing at the Live Earth Event is merely one of the first steps in her commitment towards being environmentally responsible.”

The negative headlines took some gloss off Madonna’s widely praised appearance at Wembley Stadium in London, where she sang her specially written anthem “Hey You” before a raunchy performance of three of her biggest hits.

MIXED MESSAGES

The New York Times’ online edition on Sunday featured a small picture of the event and a headline linking to “Artsbeat Blog”, and in Britain only the Independent on Sunday made anything more than a fleeting reference on its front page.

But in Germany, where Snoop Dogg was among the acts at the Hamburg gig, Live Earth dominated headlines.

“The bottom line is that if nothing else, the issue of climate protection was a lot of fun for two billion people for one day,” wrote Bild am Sonntag, Germany’s best-selling Sunday newspaper.

Organisers say that in addition to the tens of thousands of fans at the gigs, the television, radio and internet audience could be as large as two billion.

Commentators noted the difficulty in marrying pop music with serious themes like the environment.

“Mixing music and a serious message gives concert a clunky rhythm,” was the Washington Post’s description of the Wembley gig, arguably the biggest lineup on the day that featured Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica and the Foo Fighters.

Performances were interspersed with long gaps, some of them filled by short films on environmental themes.

Many performers were “on message”, calling on crowds from Sydney and Tokyo to New York and Rio de Janeiro to cut down on their personal carbon dioxide emissions and recycle.

Yet U.S. comedian Chris Rock expressed the kind of disbelief shared by many on the day that Live Earth would make a lasting difference, even if he was only joking:

“I pray that this event ends global warming the same way that Live Aid ended world hunger,” he said in London.

(Additional reporting by Erik Kirschbaum in Berlin)
Copyright © 2007 Reuters

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Michelle Malkin speaks her mind about the concerts and give links to reports at here and there. With extended general coverage of green-sanity over at this page.

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And in respnse to this Time.com article, let me say that the writer is WRONG – it very much DOES MATTER who is being a hypocrite.

Imagine a massive food fight for eradicating hunger in Africa. Or a water splash-athon to promote water conservation. Or a world record attempt for most puppies beaten to encourage ethical treatment of animals. Or a gang-bang sex-athon to promote abstinence from pre-marital sex.

You do not hire a child molester to babysit your children. The public is not inspired to become vegetarian by Kentucky Fried Chicken. Children do not listen to their chain-smoking parents when told not to pick up the habit. People are judged by their actions, not their words.

Similarly, if two-faced, fork-tongued politicians like Al Gore are voted into office, they will tighten the economic noose around OUR NECKS while loosening their own ties to enjoy their rich-polluter lifestyles. Conservation? Pah, that’s for the poor huddled masses! Not champions of the environment like Gore!

The message that their attitude and behaviour conveys is clear: The global warming chimps at the forefront don’t really believe that global warming is a real, genuine, proven problem. It’s just a ticket to the riches at the top for them, at the expense of all us ‘suckers’.