Get ready to rock, world. Live Earth is coming tomorrow to a stadium, TV or house party near you. Read about it in the Kansas City Star (article below.)Live Earth is ambitious by any standard: eight concerts featuring the biggest names in music, playing for a 24-hour period across the globe, all for the cause of global warming.
But like its template — 2006’s Live 8, the global concert devoted to poverty in Africa — the mission of Live Earth is somewhat amorphous. Its aim is to “trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis.”
Whatever Live Earth’s accomplishment Saturday, it will be difficult to measure. Former Vice President Al Gore, who partnered with Kevin Wall in founding Live Earth, believes the world needs to rise up as one giant vox populi to influence “a new political reality.”
“The tipping point in the political system will come when the majority of the people are armed with enough knowledge about the crisis and its solutions that they make this cause their own,” Gore said. “Then, you will see the entire political system shift dramatically.”
Wall, an Emmy-winning concert producer who produced Live 8, hopes Live Earth will change attitudes about global warming and spark a larger movement.
“This concert is not the solution,” Wall says. “Maybe we can make the noise, maybe we can be the town crier.”
Live Earth will send proceeds to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit organization chaired by Gore. Tickets for the U.S. concert range from $83 to $348.
Wall was originally inspired to put on Live Earth after seeing “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Oscar-winning documentary on Gore’s global-warming slideshow.
“The question I kept asking myself is, ‘What can I do?’ ” Wall says.
Concerts are scheduled for Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.; London; Johannesburg, South Africa; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Shanghai, China; Tokyo; Sydney, Australia; and Hamburg, Germany. A band of scientists also will perform in Antarctica, stretching Live Earth across seven continents.
More than 150 artists will perform, including Madonna, the Police, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Alicia Keys. Sixty short films and 30 public service announcements have been produced, which will be broadcast between performances.
Also planned are more than 6,000 parties in 119 countries, ranging from home viewings to museum festivals. The concerts will be broadcast on TV and the Internet.
Part of the thrust of Live Earth is to communicate what consumers can do to minimize their impact on the environment.
“The problem with it is that it’s a very complicated issue,” Wall says. “When you think about yourself recycling a piece of paper, how does that connect to an iceberg in the North Pole?”
Wall and Gore also have taken measures to maintain the concert’s green integrity by enlisting the support of the U.S. Green Building Council and John Picard, a former member of President Clinton’s Green White House task force. Live Earth is intended to be an eco-friendly event with power supplied from renewable energy sources and ground travel from hybrid or high-efficiency vehicles where possible.
“This is going to be the greenest event of its kind, ever,” Gore says. “The carbon offsets and the innovative practices that are being used to make this a green event, I think will set the standard for years to come.”
But like its template — 2006’s Live 8, the global concert devoted to poverty in Africa — the mission of Live Earth is somewhat amorphous. Its aim is to “trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis.”
Whatever Live Earth’s accomplishment Saturday, it will be difficult to measure. Former Vice President Al Gore, who partnered with Kevin Wall in founding Live Earth, believes the world needs to rise up as one giant vox populi to influence “a new political reality.”
“The tipping point in the political system will come when the majority of the people are armed with enough knowledge about the crisis and its solutions that they make this cause their own,” Gore said. “Then, you will see the entire political system shift dramatically.”
Wall, an Emmy-winning concert producer who produced Live 8, hopes Live Earth will change attitudes about global warming and spark a larger movement.
“This concert is not the solution,” Wall says. “Maybe we can make the noise, maybe we can be the town crier.”
Live Earth will send proceeds to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit organization chaired by Gore. Tickets for the U.S. concert range from $83 to $348.
Wall was originally inspired to put on Live Earth after seeing “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Oscar-winning documentary on Gore’s global-warming slideshow.
“The question I kept asking myself is, ‘What can I do?’ ” Wall says.
Concerts are scheduled for Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.; London; Johannesburg, South Africa; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Shanghai, China; Tokyo; Sydney, Australia; and Hamburg, Germany. A band of scientists also will perform in Antarctica, stretching Live Earth across seven continents.
More than 150 artists will perform, including Madonna, the Police, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Alicia Keys. Sixty short films and 30 public service announcements have been produced, which will be broadcast between performances.
Also planned are more than 6,000 parties in 119 countries, ranging from home viewings to museum festivals. The concerts will be broadcast on TV and the Internet.
Part of the thrust of Live Earth is to communicate what consumers can do to minimize their impact on the environment.
“The problem with it is that it’s a very complicated issue,” Wall says. “When you think about yourself recycling a piece of paper, how does that connect to an iceberg in the North Pole?”
Wall and Gore also have taken measures to maintain the concert’s green integrity by enlisting the support of the U.S. Green Building Council and John Picard, a former member of President Clinton’s Green White House task force. Live Earth is intended to be an eco-friendly event with power supplied from renewable energy sources and ground travel from hybrid or high-efficiency vehicles where possible.
“This is going to be the greenest event of its kind, ever,” Gore says. “The carbon offsets and the innovative practices that are being used to make this a green event, I think will set the standard for years to come.”
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