Inside Live Earth: The Struggle Behind President Gore's Concert for the Planet

[draft_mario_cuomo]

==>>> This article is from the latest issue of Rolling Stone, on news stands until June 29th
Kevin Wall's head is down, sorting through the blizzard of messages on his BlackBerry as a taxi whisks him through London's Oxford Circus. He just left a meeting with a representative from Prime Minister-elect Gordon Brown's office and is headed to a lunch with Ashok Sinha, head of the U.K.'s largest environmental coalition, Stop Climate Chaos.

"I just got a text from Bob Geldof," Wall says. A few days earlier, Geldof, who organized the anti-poverty Live 8 concerts with Wall in 2005, publicly criticized Live Earth, the concert Wall and Al Gore are organizing to combat climate change. "It's just an enormous pop concert," Geldof told a Dutch newspaper. "I would only organize Live Earth if I could go onstage and announce concrete environmental measures from the American presidential candidates, Congress or major corporations. They haven't got those guarantees."==

==If all goes well, Live Earth will be the biggest concert in history, a twenty-four-hour event spread across nine cities, with the Police, Kanye West and Dave Matthews Band (in New York); Madonna, Genesis and Red Hot Chili Peppers (London); Linkin Park (Tokyo); Snoop Dogg (Hamburg); and Jack Johnson (Sydney) topping the bill (see map below for information). With just weeks to go before the July 7th event, Wall and his team are scrambling to nail down artists, arrange travel and lodging for performers and crew, sell hundreds of thousands of tickets, and coordinate TV and Internet outlets that will broadcast the event around the globe.

Live Earth grew out of Gore's An Inconvenient Truth: Last year, after being invited to an advance screening, Wall saw an opportunity. "I was incredibly moved and very disturbed," he says. "There's a ton of noise around global warming, but there isn't a message of actions that individuals, government or corporations are asked to take. I thought we should create this event and get all the big media companies and artists who I've worked with in the past."==

Read the rest at http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/15148745/inside_live_earth_the_struggle_behind_al_gores_concert_for_the_planet

[Mabus]

1. The hassle will be well-worth it

if it helps more people understand what we need to do to save our planet.

[orleans]

2. yeah baby! n/t

[IndyOp]

3. I am sure John Edwards would be HAPPY to announce his 80% reduction by 2050 plan

If Geldof thinks that Live Earth should include concrete environmental measures from American Presidential candidates -- I am just CERTAIN that John would make himself available to speak to 2 Billion people...

Our generation must be the one that ends our nation's dependence on oil and ushers in a new energy economy. We need energy independence from unstable and hostile areas of the world, from global warming pollution, and from the old ways of doing business. If we harness American ingenuity to reach for transformative change, we can emerge from the crisis of global warming with a new energy economy that stimulates innovation, brings the family farm back to life, and creates more than 1 million jobs in America's farms and industries. Today, John Edwards called for America to embrace three great goals for this generation:

* Halt global warming by capping and reducing greenhouse gas pollution and leading the world to a new global climate change treaty.

* Create a new energy economy and 1 million new jobs by investing in clean, renewable energy, sparking innovation, a new era in American industry, and life in family farms.

* Meet the demand for new electricity through efficiency for the next decade, instead of producing more power.

As a result of the Edwards plan, by 2025 America will import 7.5 million fewer barrels of oil a day, produce 65 billion gallons of ethanol and other biofuels a year, generate 25 percent of our electricity from renewable sources, and produce more than 2 billion fewer tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year. Within a generation, America's cars and trucks will be virtually petroleum-free.

http://johnedwards.com/about/issues/energy/new-energy-economy/

[NYCGirl]

4. Bob Geldof is not running this thing, and Live Earth is not about US politics —

it's about the world.

[IndyOp]

5. I get that - still, while I want Gore to run, if he isn't, Edwards has the next best

plan and he is dragging in the polls behind Barrack (liquid coal, biofuel lobbyists in his pocket) Obama and Hillary Clinton... who hasn't announced anything like Edwards' plan.

On edit: Also the world needs to know that THE country that is releasing 25-30% of all greenhouse gases is going to get off it's ass and get moving!

[NYCGirl]

6. So we should use Live Earth as a political rally for Edwards (or anyone else)?

No.

[IndyOp]

7. Which explains why Geldof's idea may be being ignored --

because if Presidential Candidates are going to make concrete promises then ALL candidates would have to be provided time and that could overwhelm the concert.

I can understand Geldof's reasoning, however. The world needs to know that the US is going to get off it's ass and do something about the 25-30% of the world's greenhouse gases for which we are responsible.

Boooshy just managed to derail Chancellor Merkle's concrete plan for the G8 countries to take action.

The rest of the world sees/hears the U.S. preaching reduction of C02 and laughs because they perceive us as the problem (reasonably so) and our nation is doing nothing.