By Beryl Wajsman, Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal
Monday, July 23, 2007
Bob Geldof, organizer of the Live Aid and Live 8 concerts in 1985 and 2005 respectively, put it best. "Why is [Al Gore] actually organizing the Live Earth concerts? Was it to make us aware of environmental change?" he asked. In answer to his own question he said, "Everybody's known about that problem for years. We are all f**king conscious of it!"
What Bob Geldof did with Live Aid and Live 8 was important, not only in raising consciousness but in raising money for projects to fight poverty, drought and want. There was diligent follow-up. Live Earth simply contributed to massive concert fatigue.
For a bunch of supposedly eco-conscious entertainers, Live Earth may well have been the biggest pre-meditated carbon-spewing volcano ever. Ironically enough, there was a certain degree of poetic justice. An inappropriate medium for a questionable message.
As sketchy as much of the science fuelling the eco-theocracy, one thing Live Earth did was leave a "carbon footprint" big enough to scorch earth.
Green cool doesn't exactly go with the music industry. Unless the green is in dollars. Conspicuous consumption sells records and aside from the tons of equipment and thousands of polluting trucks used to stage the concerts, the lyrics from the artists were not exactly a throwback to the summer of love.
In one song, Snoop Dogg described "the Rolly [Rolex] on my arm," his "million-dollar boat" and his "[Rolls-Royce] Phantom."
In his hit Smack That, Akon asks women if they "wanna jump up in my Lamborghini Gallardo," while Ludacris raps about "seven cars, and eight cribs."
According to industry experts, more than two pounds of carbon is emitted for every CD pressed. Based on CD sales for 2006, that amounts to nearly 1.3 million pounds of carbon going into the environment annually.
Madonna's Confessions tour produced 440 tonnes in four months just for flights between countries, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers produced 220 tonnes with their private jet alone, over just six months, on their last world tour.
The average person produces 10 tonnes a year. Mr. Gore and his music industry friends may have a lot to answer for.
But if you are concerned that the stars of the concerts won't be giving up their private jets and gas-guzzling cars, worry not. Live Earth provided its stars with "green counselling", which offered them realistic methods of reducing their own "carbon footprint." This is not a joke. We wish it was.
Scottish performer Paolo Nuttini actually said, quite excitedly; "Yeah, I got a T-shirt made of bamboo recently and I've got some hemp clothes. They're pretty cool." Right!
To add to the eco-hypocrisy, the Fox Network revealed that Live Earth's London headline act, pop star Madonna, had invested in some of America's most polluting companies. Fox reported Madonna's charitable Ray of Light Foundation has $US4.2 million invested in heavily polluting companies such as aluminum giant Alcoa and the Ford Motor Company.
Using information from the Foundation's most recent tax returns, for 2005, Fox reported Madonna holds shares in forestry products maker Weyerhaeuser and several companies involved in oil exploration, digging and refining, including British Petroleum. Fox quoted a 2002 study from the University of Massachusetts' Political Research Institute that ranked Alcoa No. 9 on a list of all-time toxic US companies. The same UMass PRI study ranked Ford Motor Company seventh on the Toxic Top 10.
Madonna declined to comment.
So what can one say about those whom The Guardian of London columnist Marina Hyde called "The artists formerly known as huge carbon footprints?" Well, let's leave the last word to Geldof. "The last thing the planet needs is a rock concert. Bollocks to that!"
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