“Live Earth” concert updates

Live EarthI know you’re desperately seeking updates on how the “Live Earth” concerts are going (MSN’s website surely seems to be), so here are a few of them:

—- Aussie Tim Blair has a huge and hilarious link roundup of reax to and stories about the Australia Live Earth concert.

—- The Daily Mail writes about the hypocrisy of certain Live Earth celebs like Madonna, who they claim “produces more than 100 times the average amount of waste produced by Britons in a year.” Here’s more from that article:

Dr [Andrea] Collins [expert in sustainability from Cardiff University] estimates that the global audience for Live Earth will generate some 1,025 tonnes of waste. An extraordinary one million people are expected at the free concert at Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach, featuring Lenny Kravitz, Macy Gray and Pharrell Williams.

Other venues including the Coca-Cola Dome in Johannesburg – where Joss Stone is performing – will cater for audiences of tens of thousands.

Live Earth say that they will recycle much of the waste generated. Fine talk, but in fact some of the concert venues are struggling to keep up with their commitments.

A spokesman for Wembley says they only have the capacity to recycle around a third of waste produced – the rest will go into landfill sites.

Travel forms the vast majority of the ‘carbon footprint’ talked of by ecological campaigners – contributing up to 90 per cent of the environmental ‘cost’.

Collins says: “It is patently absurd to claim that travel of this nature doesn’t have an impact. Each person attending the event will have to make a return journey to the venue, be it by air, rail, bus or car. This burns fossil fuel – precisely what we are trying to reduce.

“There is also the environmental cost of these artists flying around the world – that is absolutely huge.”

Indeed, an audit of the lifestyles of the A-list performers appearing at Live Earth, reveals that they are among the worst individual polluters in the world, as their world tours and private jets billow thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. One hour in a Gulfstream jet burns as much fuel as driving a family car for a year.

The Daily Mail has found that five of the top performing acts together have an annual output of almost 2,000 carbon tonnes. Madonna alone has an annual carbon footprint of 1,018 tonnes, according to John Buckley.

Remember, the average Briton produces just ten tonnes.

—- Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard has more thoughts on the un-green nature of these greenie concerts, as does Mark Steyn.

—-Atlas Shrugs calls the concerts a “carbon footprint stampede.”

—- On that note, the Good Lt. at The Jawa Report has a great suggestion:

The carbon footprint of these concerts is likely to be a permanent stain on our environment. Save the world! Ignore environmentalist and activist celebrities! They’re killing us!

—- Check out more Live Earth concert update/global warming hilarity links here and here.

Me? I’m just wondering how many LE concertgoers and celebs are following Sheryl Crow’s “one square [of toilet paper] per restroom visit” rule

More: The Goracle himself weighs in: Al Gore slams global warming doubters at Live Earth.

Update: Here’s the quote of the day:

Live Earth is like Larry Flint making a porno movie to promote chastity.

Heh.

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