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Live Earth Concerts: Enjoy the Show, Then Vote Green
On this day of the Live Earth concerts, it is appropriate to ask whether music performances can preserve the planet.
A measure of skepticism is appropriate. For all the good intentions of George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh in 1971, Willie Nelson's Farm Aid concerts for working farmers in the U.S., and Bob Geldof's Live 8 in 2005 for debt relief and other priorities of the world's poorest countries, those concerts did more to focus attention on crises than to resolve them.
That may be the fate of today's Live Earth shows in eight cities around the world. Answering former Vice President Al Gore's call to action on climate change issues, Madonna, Genesis, the Police and dozens of other bands will perform in hopes of upping the ante in the fight against global warming.
With more than 100 acts performing live before hundreds of thousands of people and via TV, radio and the Internet before as many as 2 billion, there is no doubt that awareness of environmental concerns will rise.
But will it mean anything?
Will it matter if fans of Kanye West, Keith Urban or Smashing Pumpkins know a little more about the fact that greenhouse gases -- which our cars and planes and, um, concerts in sprawling stadiums produce -- are causing the planet to overheat? Perhaps. But awareness of climate change is no longer the central concern. As Geldof says, "Everybody's known about it for years."
Getting key players to do something about global warming is the challenge. And while Live Earth-promoted pledges to make lifestyle changes count for something, the notion that consumer choices will, in and of themselves, solve the climate crisis is unrealistic at a time when major corporations continue to take advantage of lax regulatory structures and a lack of will on the part of too many global leaders.
Fundamental political and policy shifts -- especially by a still-reluctant U.S. government -- are the key to tackling warming.
Certainly, after the microphones switch off tonight, there will be more money for campaigning on behalf of those policy shifts. Concerts like those taking place today at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, at Wembley Stadium in London, at the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai and other large venues can clear a lot of cash, and the recipient of that cash, Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection, will be empowered to do a bit more to pressure lawmakers and corporations to make eco-friendly shifts in policies.
But at the end of the day, there is reason to believe that Geldof, the organizer of the groundbreaking 1985 Live Aid concert for African famine relief, may be right when he worries that "Live Earth doesn't have a final goal." Geldof says he would only organize a concert on global warming "if I could go on stage and announce concrete environmental measures from American presidential candidates, Congress or major corporations. They haven't got those guarantees. So it's just an enormous pop concert."
That's a little harsh. But Geldof speaks from bitter experience. He's been trying to get the world to address extreme poverty for a generation, and he has organized some of the largest concert events in history on behalf of the goal. Yet he is the first to admit that not enough has changed.
The point here isn't to be cynical. It's to be realistic.
"The real power is in the hands of those who decide what is criminal and what is not," says Dave Matthews, whose band will be performing today.
He is referring not to prosecutors but to the voters. Only if Americans vote for candidates who believe that global warming is a real threat, and who are prepared to act to counter that threat, will there be any hope of averting more devastating climate changes.
We now know that it mattered a great deal more than anyone could have imagined when George Bush took the presidency from Al Gore in 2000. In 2008, when a president who will have to clean up the messes made by Bush is chosen, it will matter even more.
© 2007 Capital Newspapers
27 Comments so far
Show AllYou wouldn't be talking about the same Green Party that activated the German army for the war against the remnants of Yugoslavia, would you? They will similarly betray in America, given the chance. Be warned: the Green Party is a pro-capitalist organization, and does not have a program that will take us forward. Ditto for MoveOn.
Regarding the concerts, I think it is laudable for celebrities to donate their energy to help the planet. If they indeed have a definable program, it will doubtless be of reformist stripe, but it's still rather tall of them to take a stand that will not directly benefit them, no?
Regarding global warming, it might not even be of human origin, but even if it is, it is a derivative problem, not the root cause of present and coming trouble. Certainly it is wise and kind to conserve, but don't get too sucked up in this latest distraction. The real problem is capitalist property relations, and the resultant anarchy and social dysfunction.
As in Green Party. Not as in faux green democrats.
DITTO cutting edge.
It's about time Americans with a conscience took alternative politics seriously. The Greens have been fighting for ecolgical sustainability and environmental justice for years now... when doing so wasn't in vogue for the corporate Democrats. It will be interesting to see how the corporate Democrats jump on this Live Earth concert and it's environmental message as if it was all their doing.
Time to vote for a REAL change in our country. And this time your vote could decide whether there will even be an habitable earth in the future. Vote Green Party! http://www.gp.org/tenkey.shtml
Vote for what?
Come on we have tried the election thing. Any thoughts on how wonderful that went?
When someone tells you to vote they are pulling you back into the game where you are supposed to believe that everyone will treat the votes as though they were special and inviolate.
Of course the elections are fair and it will matter more if you waste a vote for green.
Why not purple or orange?
the lifestyle choice these concerts need to get people to make, the one they will not, is to overthrow the domination of corporations over their lives.
All we need now is U2 coming into the fray and playing marbles with blair and bush and whatshisfacerightwingnut ... it will complete the whole global 'we are all one family' picture perfectly.
The firststep towards any kind of change needs to be revoltionary. None of this is going to make a dent. I love the BEP's but holla holla ...
Ah yes, let's throw money at the problem.
No wait, let's get some lackluster pop primadonnas to sing at the crisis.
NO, no, We'll wait for politicians to fix the problem.
Sorry if I sound a bit cynical. The author already made the point that this whole thing is little more than a farce.
If it truly is such a crisis, why isn't anyone acting like it? Why are they cooly and calmly bantering like it's an MTV beach party?
Perhaps it is time for someone to overreact.
These concerts are a joke. First, why would you want to be watching them on TV when you could have gone outside and enjoyed this wonderful day today. Second, as noted by one of the British papers, these musicians and others blew through 220,000-plus worth of airline miles to get to these shows, just so the rich can lecture us little people about our fevery planet. Gag me with a spoon!
Yep, a concert will save the planet. Sure.
I remember back well over a decade ago when I think ABC did this huge Earth Day special. Every celeb and their uncle got some face time.
And then the next day everyone forgot about it.
I hate to be cynical, but pop music can't save the planet.
I was going to attend the concert in town. Not because of the music etc [I don't even know who these bands are as I haven't watched anything on TV except the World Cup since the Ollie North Hearings]
No, I was going because Global Warming is the most important issue facing us today, and it will take community effort to do anything about it. We need to build an infrastructure that can operate sans power and mass agriculture.
But, I had asked to set up a carpool to attend [probably 1/3 to 1/2 of the attendees will drive within half a mile of my house]. There were no takers, which is a sad commentary on the [people who are going.
Instead of attending the party, I am contemplating the minds of people who are willing to drive miles to meet with strangers in the name of Global Warming; but at the same time cannot save a little gas by sharing the trip.
Humans truly are some of the strangest creatures that ever evolved out of the primal ooze. Maybe the earth will have better luck with its next dominant specie.
I will vote Green Party. I do not trust allies of corporations and the Mil Ind Complex. I do not vote Democrat or Republican anymore. Done. Gone. Bye.
cut the electability crap. The Dems could take advantage of the current political climate and nominate kucinich and win so easy, instead they toil about faux universal health care, faux climate change responsibility, and other band-aid solutions that make me sick. Goodnight.
I went to a party tonight put on by MoveON.org (no, I didn't give them any money!) I saw a video of the Democratic Party candidates talking about global warming. It went from Kucinich--who uttered warm and fuzzy words about how he would involve ALL the American people--to Clinton, who said she was interested in Carbon Auctions and Carbon cap trades.
In other words, from the Left to the Right of the Democratic party, nobody is talking about mandatory restrictions on carbon emissions. Which is what we need. Because the Democrats are another corporate capitalist party. They are loyal to the corporations. they will defend to the death (the death of the human race, including the rest of us, the working and middle classes) the corporation's right to make a profit.
But is Nader and the Green Party so much better? They don't owe their primary loyalties to the corporations, per se. But Nader and the Green Party leadership are strong believers in the capitalist system. They have not yet learned what socialists understand--to paraphrase Marx's quip about Proudhon, to think that you can have capitalism and a market system without capital concentrating into huge, violent, destructive corporations is like having Catholicism without the Pope! And, both Nader and the Green Party leadership have continually argued that they do NOT with to create a real alternative to the Democratic Party. Like warm and fuzzy Dennis K., they seek merely to move it to the Left. David Cobb took the Green Party in 2004 into a "safe states" strategy, which was basically pro-Kerry (who was pro-war).
Only by building an (eco-) socialist party of the working class, to place control of the planet into the hands of working people, can we stop war, global warming, the health care crisis that Michael Moore has so well presented in his movie SICKO, etc. etc. Only in this way can we replace ecological devastation with permaculture and genuine sustainability that goes beyond the Democratic Party soundbyte. (Vote for us--we'll stab you in the back just like Bush did!)
I hope all the musicians and celebrities jet-pooled to the shows, and used their solar powered guitars and amps.
If over-inflated egos were the solution for global warming, today would have been 60 below zero
While I enjoyed John Waters and the Police and Melissa Etheridge.. I have to say.. that it was a bit weak on getting anyone to change their lives. Al Gore came on a few times but it seemed to be one big party.. instead of making folks more conscious.
The big thing.. is that we really are going to have to REDUCE our consumerism. We need to MAJORLY rethink how we live. NO more BIG UBER McMansions and no more big SUV's. Forget about using Nuclear to fuel our homes.. and biofuels that take up needed farmland.
real solutions can be found here::
Community Service, Inc. (CSI), founded in 1940, is a non-profit organization that educates on the benefits and values of small local community living. We envision a world where people live sustainably and cooperatively in local communities which are diverse, equitable, and just.
The Community Solution program, started in 2003, is a national resource for knowledge and practices on low-energy living and self-reliant communities. We educate about the coming global oil production peak and climate change, and design solutions to the current unsustainable, fossil-fuel based, overly centralized way of living.
The Community Solution seek alternatives to both non-renewables (hydrogen, large scale coal/gas-to-liquids, carbon sequestration, tar sands) and renewables (large scale wind systems, biofuels, solar) that are risky and intended to maintain inequitable and unsustainable levels of resource consumption.
http://www.communitysolution.org/
The fact people are questioning it shows it got recognition. So, walk, bike, buy your next car as fuel-efficient as possible, make sure your constant on appliances are off except when using them (not the fridge), plan your car trips to drive the minimum possible. Keep track of your mileage and plant trees or do a carbon exchange. If we don't buy gas guzzlers than we have circumvented our do nothing politicians. It starts with us.
I doubt if Kucinich would defend current levels of corporate profit "to the death."
"Green" and "socialism"...both just as cursory as "awareness of climate change."
Ya gotta break it down for the dittoheads (fellow and sister humans). There's your challenge. And mine.
Politics is the realm of compromise...not IMO the realm of Utopias. It's involved. Break it down for the real power...not for the prosecutors but for the voters.
http://liveearth.msn.com
"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and
crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." Senator Robert Kennedy (1925-1968)
mfskinner writes: "Of course the elections are fair and it will matter more if you waste a vote for green."
The implication being that a vote for the Republicrats is NOT a waste.
I enjoyed the show. NBC, CNBC and Bravo all carried the concert and I thank them for giving Live Earth airtime without a lot of commercials. Great music, the only thing I would criticize is, we needed individuals to step forward and personally express their feelings about consumption and waste.
This was a good example of "corporate" support for an environmental movement. We need them to respond to us and they are. We know the faults and manipulation of corporate media support! The point is they did support the concerts!
This is just the beginning of it folks, everywhere you look advertising is catching on to the green wave. Our message is needed more than ever now because MSM will hijack OUR cause. We have their attention and THAT is a good thing.
We need our skeptical thinking to apply to corporate green thinking and to encourage others to keep their "Eye on the Prize". Don't settle for anything that doesn't stop the encroachment corporate power has over the earth.
The above criticisms of Live Earth are well founded, however I will live with that because MSM made a big move towards awareness of the condition of our planet.
So...what ever happened to common dreams? The "event" was a catalyst for me to host a gathering of friends and neighbors (only 21 in all) to talk about the things we are doing and the things we are willing to do on behalf of the planet.
We didn't turn on the TV once! But we did talk and listen to one another about all the work that needs to be done. We have a commitment from all who were there to work globally and locally to make a difference. And, you know what? We will!
Right on dream-on and NM.
MSM?
Which remnants, walticular?
western capitalism reforms itself, walticular, then SCO will naturally follow suit? What makes you think so...if you do? I prefer Rosa Brooks'
Lesson Four lingo.
What is good about the concerts IMO is that the creative sector of our society got some coverage as behind the cause. The concerns I will admit to [which may be ultimately irrelevant] are somewhat along the lines of what some posters have mentioned above. There are many touters of solutions in the media and/or in media's eye. How much depth there is to them...again as has been stated...is justifiably open to question. Another question which I wonder about: Is the average bloke overwhelmed by the apparent plethora of creative folks behind the right causes while s/he, working as much as s/he is, has so few avenues to be creative him/herself?
When the majority is stymied creatively are the artists that make it to the top challenged by an adequate number of up-and-coming folks from the bottom? [IOW the busier they keep us the less impressive are poets will be at our rallies?] What I saw covered at LiveEarth was really brief, and I could be way wrong, but indeed it did seem as though the limelighters haven't being getting enough challenge from the grass roots (as say even opposed to Live 8). Some well read folks will say immediately, "well, your thing about lack of options for creativity is a bit like Marx." My view is different than Marx's. No matter how unchallenged the artists were who participated in LiveEarth, I still put value on the fact that it's a creative element in the eyes of some that's behind the cause. As far as I'm concerned let everything be more open to the commentary of artists and the indeterminacy of art; cause, the way I read him, Marx was too deterministic for me and for our times.
Still, if walticular used lesson-four lingo, his/her closing point would be totally apropos re the triage circumstance.
Here's how my last post should have read. Sorry about error with all the italics!.....................
Right on dream-on and NM.
MSM?
Which remnants, walticular?
IF western capitalism reforms itself, walticular, then SCO
will naturally follow suit? What makes you think so...if you do? I prefer the
Lesson Four lingo and the Lesson Four shot at it.
What is good about the concerts IMO is that the creative sector of our society got some coverage as behind the cause. The concerns I will admit to [which may be ultimately irrelevant] are somewhat along the lines of what posters have mentioned above. As others have stated above there are many touters of solutions in the media and/or in media's eye. How much depth there is to them...as has been mentioned above...is justifiably open to question. Another question which I wonder about: Is the average bloke overwhelmed by the apparent plethora of creative folks behind the right causes while s/he, working as much as s/he is, has so few avenues to be creative him/herself?
When the majority is stymied creatively are the artists that make it to the top challenged by an adequate number of up-and-coming folks from the bottom? [IOW the busier they keep us the less impressive are poets will be at our rallies?] What I saw covered at LiveEarth was really brief, and I could be way wrong, but indeed it did seem as though the limelighters haven't being getting enough challenge from the grass roots (as say even opposed to Live 8). Some well read folks will say immediately, "well, your thing about lack of options for creativity is a bit like Marx." My view is different than Marx's. No matter how unchallenged the artists were who participated in LiveEarth, I still put value on the fact that it's a creative element in the eyes of some that's behind the cause. As far as I'm concerned let everything be more open to the commentary of artists and the indeterminacy of art; cause, the way I read him, Marx was too deterministic for me and for our times.
Still, if walticular used lesson-four lingo, his/her closing point would be totally apropos re the triage circumstance.
"And, both Nader and the Green Party leadership have continually argued that they do NOT with to create a real alternative to the Democratic Party. Like warm and fuzzy Dennis K., they seek merely to move it to the Left. David Cobb took the Green Party in 2004 into a "safe states" strategy, which was basically pro-Kerry (who was pro-war)."
I'm unaware of any statements by the Green Party leadership expressing a lack of desire to build an alternative to the Republicrats. As for Cobb, he was only one candidate run by the party out of many, and he urged progressives who felt that they had to support Kerry to vote Green in down-ticket races and register as Greens.
In 2006, the Green Party ran many statewide and national candidates to oppose the corporate parties. Pat LaMarche, who was Cobb's running mate in 2004, got nearly 10% in the Maine Governor's race and kept her state party's ballot status. Thanks to Pat and the Greens who supported her, our 2008 Presidential candidate won't have to do any petitioning in Maine.
Let me be a bit cynical here. The whole show was about dwindling in store and online record sales. This was supposed to a shot in the arm of the music industry. It is not far fetched to think that the organizers hoped that the concert goers may grab the feel good moment and get fired up to buy music of the artists who were doing so much for the environment. Moreover this global concert was only pushing western pop culture of dubious value. This was to the music industry what Miss Universe is to the cosmetic industry. I can't figure out why Gore got mixed up in all of this.
The Greens are pathetic. The major issue of the hour and not a peep. They are useless and irrelevant--they could've maged a war against the SUV and not a word. They are isolated in their elitist enclaves, focus on niche issues and reinforce class distinctions.
quote: [Vern July 9th, 2007 8:35 am]
"The Greens are pathetic. The major issue of the hour and not a peep. They are useless and irrelevant–they could've maged a war against the SUV and not a word. They are isolated in their elitist enclaves, focus on niche issues and reinforce class distinctions."
True, but they are slightly less pathetic than the ISO, the Communist Party and whole lot of other 'leftist' groups. If you wonder why the corporate suit Dems are the only ones in the limelight, its b/c the so-called "grassroots" simply can't get their act together to get job done.
The suggested challenges of Live Earth are do-able.....waiting to convince an administration is not, at least, not now...... changing a light bulb, or four or eliminating at least one gasoline trip a week is do-able.......and the most important detail, one-4 light bulbs x only two million is a HUGE reduction of energy consumption as is one reduced trip x two million or ten million. Change has to be applicable and possible.