Live Earth concerts around the globe on Saturday will show whether pop stars can do more than scientists and governments to encourage people to tackle global warming.
But are musicians the right people to get a message across about a need — as agreed by almost all climate experts – for sharp cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases in coming decades?
Stars bring charisma and hit songs to encourage millions to act 
– by turning off the lights at home, biking to work or lobbying governments for tougher environmental laws. That makes the idea sound like a winner because far and way more people listen to music than read U.N. reports about the risks of climate change.
On the other hand, glitz and glamour risk making the fight against climate change sound like a passing fad championed by a bunch of hedonists. Aren’t these same people pampering themselves in air-conditioned Hollywood mansions, driving around in limousines and flying by private jet?
“There are pitfalls about moving in this direction too enthusiastically,” says Max Boykoff, a researcher at Oxford University, of the celebrity connection at the concerts in Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Hamburg, London, Rio de Janeiro and New York, arranged by an alliance led by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.
So what do you think?
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6 comments so far
Big-name entertainers and politicians are skillful and effective at promotional activities such as motivating large numbers of people to support collective action to address global warming. It may well be that entertainers and politicians do not have the know-how to actually do anything about global warming, or even to know precisely what it is that must be done. That is the exclusive province of science. But without entertainers and politicians to mobilize public support to address global warning (with sufficient vigor to overcome the marketing and lobbying expenditures of the fossil fuel industries), the scientists can do nothing about global warming. For that reason, entertainers and politicians are the indispensible front office in the effort to address global warming issues, even if scientists must remain the unsung and underappreciated heroes in the back office who are actually getting the job done.
- Posted by BobGood questions and ideas. I am sure that the stars have much stronger power to excite masses - sometimes we would say “unfortunately”. Also, the stars have a much stronger consensus than scientists that global warming is a crisis and they must fight it. The same stars of course have another consensus, namely that they want to live in expensive houses and hotels and use expensive means of transportation.
At the same moment, it is also true that the excitement created by stars usually doesn’t have a lasting value and lasting impact. I hope it will be the case of global warming, too. It is very difficult not to see how hypocritical the attitude of the stars (and not only stars) are - and how they promote weird memes such as global warming because of their image.
- Posted by Lubo Motli AGREE.
- Posted by danny beeFor more information:
GOOGLE: “polar cities”
WIKIPEDIA: “polar cities”
BLOG SEARCH: “polar cities”
I’m no expert on global warming or entertainment. However, it feels to me that the target audience for the concerts is the very people who have the least impact. They are probably young, quick to change their views, low on the salary scale and probably not car-owners, house-owners of serious investors.
The audience that needs to wake-up to the issues are fat middle-aged people who drive big cars, live in hot (or cold) parts of the world, love their creature comforts, have money to invest (and hence influence), focus on personal security rather than global well-being and are, basically, selfish. Probably the very people who say this event will be a waste of time (me?)
- Posted by Nic FultonBig concerts like this, with everyone donating their time for free, sell a truck load of DVD’s Cd’s etc etc. in the forthcoming months.
- Posted by PeteJust as politicians jump on the bandwaggon, to help us, no, to help their books deals and after diner speech rates.
We all know the climate changes, it chopped and changed well before man came along.
Its changing now, none of us will have the slightest affect on it. Get used to it.
LETS’S FACE IT FOLKS, IT IS JUST A BUNCH OF HOGWASH!
- Posted by FRANK