Live Earth: What in the World? Karl Whitney The Belfast Telegraph, Friday 29th June 2007 - - - - First there was Live Aid, then Live 8, now it's Live Earth ... a massive music event happening simultaneously all over the world, to raise consciousness of the climate-change crisis. But does the ambitious project create as many problems as it hopes to solve? And isn't there an irony in multi-millionaire rock stars jetting in to persuade ordinary people to change their lifestyle? Karl Whitney reports Next Saturday, a charity concert called Live Earth will be held in seven locations around the world, including London, Tokyo and Antarctica, where a number of environmental scientists have formed a band to perform as part of the global event. Among the acts playing in London will be Bangor's Snow Patrol and Irish troubadour Damien Rice. Singer Katie Melua, a former Belfast resident, will perform at the Hamburg concert. The shows, organised by former vice-president of the US, Al Gore, and music promoter Kevin Wall, are intended to raise awareness of global warming and to provide a future model for sustainable music events. It is Gore's hope that the concerts will force the debate on global warming firmly on to the international - and especially the American - political agenda. How this is helped by a number of past-it musicians trotting out on the stage at Wembley next week is not yet clear. Indeed, the line-up is quite tame, overlooking the usual issue bandwagon-jumpers like Coldplay in favour of old stagers like Madonna, Duran Duran and Genesis (the latter promoting a recent greatest hits collection). Thankfully, the spoof rock band Spinal Tap will also be there to deflate much of the pomposity, with their new song about global warming, Warmer Than Hell. Gore has long made the issue of global warming a personal, political priority, and recently used his 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, to draw attention to environmental concerns. The film was highly successful, and made facts about global warming mainstream, whereas previously the public discourse had been limited by special interests in Washington. Live Earth represents a continuation of the mobilization that resulted from the release of the documentary, as public awareness grew around the issues Gore had focused on. But Live Earth is envisaged as only the beginning of a campaign to put global warming on the political map, a campaign that will last for years. Gore has recently given interviews which point to a long-term battle plan which will be carried out under the supervision of the Alliance for Climate Protection, of which he is the chairman. Proceeds from Live Earth will go to this group, as well as to environmental campaign groups in different countries. But the whole process of touring and gigging seems at odds with environmental concerns: no matter how environmentally aware a musician is, if he or she chooses to tour, it is difficult to do so in an environmentally sustainable way. In a recent interview, Damien Rice confessed that he was "responsible for more carbon emissions" than any of his friends. Saying that he flies 20 people around the world when on tour, he emphasised that he tried to use biofuel whenever possible, and used carbon offsetting to try to balance out fuel used by buses and planes. On this issue, Rice is unusually candid for a rock star, but he points to the problem inherent in an event like this: the contradiction between the message being sent out and the waste and pollution involved in the process of putting on such a concert. Snow Patrol, keen to lend their support to the Live Earth cause, chose to play at the London event, even though they are due to play at the Oxegen festival in Naas, Co Kildare that evening. In order to do both, the band must fly between venues. The organisers of Live Earth have sought to allay these concerns by promising that the electricity used during the shows will be from renewable sources, and that any plastic used for drinks containers will be biodegradable. They have also said that carbon credits will be used to offset air travel and that the concert lighting will use sustainable, low-energy consumption principles. Live Earth has been criticised by Bob Geldof, who has been involved in charity events such as Live Aid and Live 8 in the past. In a recent outburst, he said that the Live Earth concerts lacked real goals, and were pointless: "We are f**king conscious about global warming," he slammed. Gore soon responded, praising Geldof's work on charity concerts, but underlining that Live Earth was necessary and that "we have very specific goals that will be very significant and hard-hitting". Characteristically, Gore was tight-lipped about what these goals actually were, saying they would be announced just before and during the concert. But there is also the question of public exhaustion with large charity events - and this is not merely scepticism when confronted with multi-millionaires asking the public to reach into their pockets. The effectiveness of such events is not clear: one could argue that Live Aid threw money at a problem that was soon going to recur, and the recent failure of Live 8 to hold governments to their promises on Third World debt has created a doubt about the efficacy of charity concerts. It is in this context that the seemingly modest aims of Live Earth must be seen: it is the beginning of a process, rather than a one-day exercise in feeling good, at the end of which someone can announce: "Thanks very much, guys - we saved the world!" A global, and growing, environmental crisis cannot be resolved with such seemingly-heroic announcements; neither, it seems, can the issue of Third World debt. The danger is that, rather than being the beginning of a long-term process as Gore anticipates, Live Earth might bring the issues to prominence for one day, and one day only. Gore's view is that the end justifies the means: that putting the information out there for 24 hours globally will hasten a change in consciousness. He promises that Live Earth will "provide over 100 simple actions and tools that, if applied on a mass scale, will have a massive impact on combating the climate crisis". This will hasten a change in public opinion, and politicians will have to listen. Damien Rice agrees: "I hope that it creates a massive amount of awareness among people around the world, so that when there's a push for governments to change the way we do things, the support is there among people. If that becomes spread throughout the world and throughout people's consciousness, that would be a great thing." Tickets for Live Earth at Wembley Stadium are sold out. Live Earth will be broadcast on BBC Radio 1 and BBC TV, as well as on the internet at liveearth.msn.com © 2007 The Belfast Telegraph To read this piece on the Belfast Telegraph site click here -------- Journalism | Home | About