Letters to the Editor
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The big lie?
I'll admit that I think Al Gore is a whack job. I don't believe that there is enough evidence to support his claims about global warming. Hell, even the scientific community cannot agree on this global warming crap, but if Al Gore can get people out of SUV's, then I support him, 200%! God, I can't believe the size of some of those beasts. I see them getting driven and parked in so many ways other than the right way because the driver's can't see around them very well. They come into my lane to avoid a parked car because they can't even see how much distance is between them and that parked car. I cringe at the light when I hear the sucking of the engine at the change of the green light. Some of them have got to have several hundred pounds of aftermarket add ons that add to the sucking of the beasts. I am so sick of driving behind these gas guzzling buildings that block my view of the road ahead that I would support anyone that can get them off our streets. They were designed and built to get into areas that where paved roads are not present, like logging operations and hunting, not at the local grocery store by a little lady who can barely see out of the damned thing, much less drive it properly. I look around and see an ocean of huge gas guzzling SUV's. Our outdated refineries are overworked and the price of gas is hovering close to three dollars a gallon and big oil is called the villan! I wonder how many of those doom and gloom individuals are driving gas guzzling SUV's.
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South Park Summed it Up
From the South Park episode about a hippie concert:
Stan: Uh, excuse me. Excuse me; can I have your attention please? What are we doing? It's been nine days! Doesn't it seem like we should accomplish something?
Hippie: We're using the power of rock and roll to change the world! Woo!
Stan: Maybe instead of complaining about corporations being selfish, we should look at ourselves. I mean, is there anything more selfish than doing nothing but getting high and listening to music all day long?
Singer: He's right. It's time for all of us to focus our energy and get this hippie jam into full swing.
I also found these tidbits: the celebrities and musicians logged approximately 222,623 miles of air travel for the concert. That's not counting transporting dancers, set up people, staff, and the audience.
According to Carbonfootprint.com, the total carbon footprint of the event is at least 31,500 tons of carbon emissions. If you count the TV audience, that figure goes up to 74,500 tons. The concert has generated about 1,025 tons of waste destined for landfills.
So my questions are: 1)how long will it take for the environment to recover from this mass resource consumption? And 2)Why is it that celebrities strive to be carbon neutral? Why not be carbon minus (i.e. conserve energy!)
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Chris Rock Said It Best
"I pray that this event ends global warming the same way that Live Aid ended world hunger."
I tried to watch some of the coverage, but between the inane Today Show style hosts and the almost sterile performances of second and third tier rock stars I was bored stiff.
Ms. Wilson thinks there is a right wing conspiracy that is minimizing the reporting of the event. I believe that the event itself is more than enough reason for the lack of attention. Forget the politics, as a concert this was a downer. Hey, I loved Spinal Tap, IN 1984!
I find it hard to believe that the organizers of this event were so oblivious to the conflict between a rock concert and conservation of resources. Wouldn't it have made more sense to have the performers all stay home and perform via TV or Internet? Have you seen the pictures of the aftermath of the concerts? Football stadiums covered with garbage, parking lots covered with garbage, traffic jams on the NJ Turnpike. What if the 200,000 tons of carbon produced by this event are the tipping point that push global warming over the unrecoverable cliff?
Liberal politicians, artists and fans always try to recapture the "spirit of Woodstock". But they fail to realize that the spirit grew from the bottom up - no one planned it out, no one marketed it, no one sold the naming rights to Chevrolet for God's sake.
The one thing I'm most saddened by is that for many people, watching or attending this concert is the most they will ever do to address the issues of over-consumption, pollution and climate change.
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A few more things
btw, captainlarab, the quote I used (that they want people to "change their consumer behaviors") is from the Live Earth's website, stated as one of their main goals.
Arguing that people might have been doing other equally wasteful activities is absurd. The celebrities probably would be on jets anyway, but the dancers, staff, audience,etc would not have been flying. And why is it so hard to get these celebs to refrain from using private jets? If they can't discipline themselves, who are they to tell others to do it?
The obvious point you're missing in your store shopping vs web shopping comment is that one can always walk or bike to a store.
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Yeah, but...
It wasn't just a hippie concert. If you were watching the concert on Bravo and/or on the Internet, you would have seen a bunch of names scrawling by on the bottom. Then you'd see that you could get your own name to scrawl by, by logging onto www.liveearth.org. So you'd say to yourself, "Cool!" and log on. Well, guess what? In order to make your name scroll across the screen, you had to enter some data, put yourself on Liveearth's mailing list, and make all sorts of pledges to make minor changes in your lifestyle. Then there was this other section of the website where you could calculate your carbon footprint. While we watching the concert, I calculated our family's footprint and we realized that my partner's frequent air travel (which she has to do for work) was pushing us above the average footprint for an American household. So, while we were watching the concert, my partner agreed to purchase carbon offsets for her air travel, or have her employer or conference organizer do the same (and I did some additional research indicating that this can easily be done through both Orbitz and Travelocity). In exchange, I promised my partner I would cut down on my hot showers in the morning. As of this morning, I have resumed the practice I once engaged in while living in Germany (where people have been doing this for years due to the prohibitive costs of hot water): I rinse off, shut off the hot water to shampoo/shave, etc., then turn the hot water back on to rinse at the end.
I'm as big a fan of South Park and poking fun at sanctimonious liberals with half-baked ideas as the next person, but there was a wee bit more to this Live Earth stuff than a bunch of hippies getting high in a park.