Live Earth Post Mortem

I chose to spend the day taking a nice hike along the Saddle River in Fair Lawn and Glen Rock instead of expending carbon emissions to go to Live Earth to find out that people on this planet are emitting stuff into the atmosphere. Is that actually news or worth a concert that expends thousands of tons of emissions? I don't think so. I didn't want to add to the mess by driving to an event and getting into a traffic jam all in the name of reducing global emissions.

 


 

Shouldn't we start acting as though there's the crisis that the Al Gore followers are saying it is when they start acting like it's a crisis?

Did any of the bands actually strip down their acts and go acoustic instead of lugging around hundreds of tons of equipment, lights, and props? While Dave Matthews suggested that you bring your own coffee mug to the coffee shop instead of the disposable cup, did he decide to limit his own band's entourage and equipment going forward because of the emissions caused by all those tractor trailers lugging that stuff around from the airport where big cargo planes transport that stuff from engagement to engagement?

In other words, it was a day of music and entertainment, and not much else.

On an afternoon in which recycling was stressed, the only thing I saw recycled was the rhetoric and the tunes, with small exceptions. On a day when we were supposed to conserve, the majority of the things I heard and saw were disposable -- too easy to toss and move on.

I'd like to be wrong, but I'm afraid the message here got lost in the music and the hype. At best and at worst, Live Earth is a bumper sticker: an ostentatious ornament, which is futile alone, but representative of something greater with substantial action to back it. It's place in history is dependent on the response it generates; a response which won't be seen for many years.

Global warming has always been a bumper sticker and when the facts have changed and the junk science and charlatans like Al Gore get exposed when real science shows that the situation isn't nearly as settled as Gore pontificates, you get nothing but shrill ad hominem attacks on those who want to see hard science applied to the issue, and not soft platitudes that demand immediate action and onerous tax schemes that will enrich governments and entities like Gore's carbon trading scheme.

Hot Air has more.

UPDATE:
Gateway Pundit notes some of the excesses that the stars of the concert endure during their touring and when they're at home. I'd point out that one of the performers, Snoop Dogg, had a huge gold chain around his neck. It takes five tons of ore to produce one ounce of gold. How many ounces of gold went into that necklace? How many chemicals were used to separate that gold from ore and how much energy went into the smelting process, production, and shipping?

The hypocrisy is so thick you can walk on it.

UPDATE:
Al Gore in not quite 3d. How much energy was expended so that he could pull that off? Between the computer power, lasers, and projection equipment, how many emissions were due to that stunt? Folks down in Australia were not impressed by the promoters, and who noted this is what happens when you let hippies run an event. Heh, I'd say that you're the bigger fool for thinking that this event would actually change anything.

Nothing like a traveling global climate change catastrophe. That's what Madonna's current worldwide tour is.

Others blogging the post mortem: Blue Crab Boulevard (and here), Michelle Malkin, Ed Driscoll, Sister Toldjah,