As 'Live Earth' Plays, Millions to Work for Climate Protection
A series of nine global concerts will kick off in Sydney, Australia and feature more than 100 artists, including big-name rockers like Madonna, the Police, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The artists are performing for free, according to a statement released by Gore, and ticket proceeds will benefit the Alliance for Climate Protection in its work to reverse global climate change. "The concert is designed to launch an ongoing three- to five-year national campaign," says Live Earth spokesperson Yusef Robb. "We're trying to jumpstart a massive audience and form a critical mass of people around the world who make the climate crisis a priority in their lives. This will create the market and political forces necessary to drive change, as well." The live shows will take place at Giants Stadium just outside New York and in London, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hamburg, and Istanbul. To reach an expected 2 billion people, the event will also feature broadcasts on the Web, television, radio, and wireless channels around the world.
At each of these events, large and small, the focus will be on understanding the issue and what individuals, communities, and governments can do to reduce global climate change. Taking a Global Message Local Across North America, for example, there will be house parties and restaurant gatherings to kick off the call to action. In New York City, members of a Dahn yoga group plan to watch the event together and come up with concrete steps for action; several city bars and restaurants are hosting viewings of the concert and offering sign-on pledges for those willing to commit to making changes at home, and prizes for the best climate-protective plans.
Lewes, England -- one of a growing number of "Transition Towns" around the world that model a more sustainable environment in the face of peak oil prices and climate change -- is hosting a Powerdown Party at 7pm that will feature solar-powered music by Southern Sailor, viewing of the Live Earth performance, and an exclusive address from Al Gore. In New Delhi, India, 7/7/07 is also being marked as the halfway-point of the Millennium Development Goals 2000-2015, designed to improve the lives of millions around the world by reducing poverty and HIV/AIDS and increasing access to education. The United Nations concert, "Keep the Promise," will spotlight global poverty and efforts to halve it by 2015 -- and illuminate the links between poverty and climate change. An interactive "Friends of Live Earth" network has been created to link people to local events using their state/province, country, or zip code. Gigantic Concerts, Green Thyself Just how eco-friendly can nine concerts and 10,000 satellite events that together convene some 2 billion people really be? Live Earth is working to practice what some of its artists screech: it's attempting to set a new standard for "greening" large-scale events.
The live shows will be powered by electricity from renewable sources: generators in London will run on bio-fuel; in Japan, the show will go on entirely thanks to wind and solar power. Most of the stages were assembled using recycled materials, and there are plans to recycle or reuse the pieces of the stage after the last encore ends and the crowds shuffle out. In the United States, the knives and forks being used at the Giants Stadium show will be biodegradable, and commuters are being encouraged to use the subway or log on to Evite to arrange for a rideshare. In Hamburg and Sydney, the cost of admission includes free passes for rail, ferry, or bus tickets, to encourage the use of mass transportation, says Robb. To offset fuel emissions from the jet-setting stars, Live Earth will invest in carbon credits and renewable energy projects such as wind turbines or reforestation projects in Mozambique. Ceding some ground to logistics, the event's press materials note that "ground travel will be hybrid or high-efficiency vehicles, where possible." Bathrooms, walkways, and even the spotlights on rock-and-roll's glammorati will be illuminated using sustainable light design principles and ultra-low energy LED light bulbs.
"It's one thing to make people aware, it's an entirely different thing when they take the first step -- that's when they really get engaged. So we're presenting simple things they can do: change a light bulb, take mass transit, turn off their computer monitor at work," says Robb, who hopes the show will push people worldwide to "commit to making changes at home, in their communities, and in their governments." One of the campaign's more ambitious goals is to have a new global climate treaty signed by 2009. ....................................................................................
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"Climate Change"Author:
Alistair Melville
Time: 07/06/2007 16:44
Comment: To hear the new song "Climate Change"
Go to www.almelville.com |
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