I’ve had LiveEarth — Al Gore’s climate crisis concert extravaganza — on in the background while blogging tonight. I’ve learned a few things:
- Madonna plays a decent rhythm guitar.
- Recycled tires and oil drums can be used to good effect as a stage background.
- Kelly Clarkson has some pipes. (I had no clue she won American Idol. Maybe AI voters are smarter than I give them credit for.)
- Red Hot Chili Peppers are, indeed, hot.
- The Beasty Boys can still belt out Sabotage.
- Drink enough gin and even Bon Jovi sounds pretty good.
- Lenny Kravitz = Jimi Hendrix wannabe.
- Bobby Kenedy would be great heading up EPA, but I already knew that.
I’m sorry I missed the Spinal Tap set featuring a performance of Stonehedge.
It’s easy to dismiss efforts such as these as all hype. But I don’t. I see the names of kids (mostly kids, I guess) scrolling across the screen who at least took the time to visit the LiveEarth website and took the LiveEarth pledge, and I’m encouraged. And I recall a similar concert more than 20 years ago, just about this time of year.
On July 13. 1985, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure’s LiveAid concert reached 1.5 billion people worldwide to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia.
I was a wired gardener back then, too. I remember weeding and listening along with the rest of the world on my cassette player/FM radio strapped to my belt, and realizing (while Phil Collins was singing “I can feel it coming in the air tonight … “) that the world had changed.
Is there still hunger in Ethiopia? You bet. But while I’m no fan of unfettered globalization, I’m glad that word travels faster and farther than it did just a generation ago. We’ve still got some work to do to make sure that that word is truth. But I, for one, am hopeful.
Look for Al to declare in October or November.
Updated/bonus track: So they could get a venue on every continent, LiveEarth included a pre-recorded performance by Nunatak — a garage band of British researchers in Antarctica. (Do they have garages in Antarctica?) They’re not bad, really — especially when you consider how cold their hands must be.
