Will This Weekend's Concertizing Help Cool the Planet?

The plethora of weddings taking place on this coming especially propitious Saturday will be accompanied by music from all seven continents. The Live Earth concerts for a climate crisis will be beamed to 2 billion viewers. Live Earth's master of ceremonies is Al Gore.

Science critic at large Russell Seitz--who last made an appearance in H&R discussing Gore's Venusian meteorology--casts a somewhat gimlet eye on tomorrow's goings-on. To wit:

A little consciousness raising is a dangerous thing. Millions led to fear rising seas by An Inconvenient Truth are beginning to wonder about tomorrow's LiveEarth concerts. Could the coal-fired electrical demand of bands with ten megawatts of stage lighting undo Al Gore's good intentions? Biodiesel is the mantra offered in global response ,but all Green politics is local. It is up to the crowd to offset its own affluent effluence, lest CO2 from sweaty dancing send the fever swamps of the Potomac flooding onto the National Mall like the Lagoon of Venice at high tide.

Whole Seitz post here.

For good or ill, I suspect that Live Earth will have about as much effect on policy as Bono's and Geldof's Live 8 Concerts did. Have a good weekend.

Comments

[MJ]

joe, frothing at the mouth, in 3...2...

[ed]

joe is awol. It's quiet in here.

Too quiet...

[Warren]

Oh man, I can't wait to see the look on those little Eichmanns' faces when they hear this crunchy groove.

[TallDave]

Just seeing all those dorks out there, I feel cooler already.

[mediageek]

Shitty emo band Fallout Boy are playing Live Earth.

Pretty much sums the whole thing up in a nutshell.

[Matt J]

Beaten to the crunchy groove reference! Damn!

[joe]

Sorry, I stopped reading after the weak-assed insult to the most important concert in the history of mankind.

[Guy Montag]

Carbon Credits! Get your freshly minted Carbon Credits right here!

I shall be celebrating this eveny by watching the Daytona NEXTEL Cup (alternative fueled) race tomorrow evening.

[Finkelstein]

All the leftoids are still in disbelief that this concert was reported (gasp!) by Drudge.

You are getting information from the Drudge Report? Are you serious? It is just a link, but you are going there, looking for things to blog about? I come back to reason.com every once in a while, but seem to get scared back away by something like this. Drudge is far from "reason."

[Ron Bailey]

Finkelstein: I'm puzzled by your post. I visit all kinds of websites, but I don't think I've clicked on Drudge more than twice or three times in my life. Anyway, if Drudge "scares" you, I suggest you stay away and spend more time at reason.com. Have a good weekend.

[TallDave]

Well, good news for warmenists: Greenland won't melt, apparently.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070705/sc_nm/glacier_greenland_dc_1;_ylt=AuAFDUHRdIYJ0v5WBvDX8P8E1vAI

Scientists had thought the area was last ice-free about 120,000 years ago during the last interglacial but the study showed southern Greenland was still covered in ice at that time.

This suggests the southern Greenland ice sheet is more stable than thought and might not be as big a contributor to sea level rises caused by rising temperatures, Willerslev said.

This does not change the view that climate change is problematic but could force scientists to rethink their models looking at the impact of warming temperatures, he said.

"If we have found evidence that the ice didn't melt away then people have to take that into account when modeling how ice caps might react in the future to climate change," he said.

[TallDave]

I accuse Ron Bailey of trying to capitalize on the politics of fear.

[Troy]

The only thing accomplished by Live 8 was getting Roger, Nick, Rick, and David all on the stage at the same time. I never would have thought that would have happened.

[D.A. Ridgely]

The Live Earth concerts for a climate crisis will be beamed to 2 billion viewers. Live Earth's master of ceremonies is Al Gore.

Could someone please TiVo it for me? I just checked and there's a conflict with "That 70's Show" and an episode of "Frasier" I really want to see.

[P.S. to Mr. Bailey: Thanks for the kind words, Ron and yes, btw, e-mail does work both ways!]

[mediageek]

Ron, when will you stop shilling for Big Drudge?

=>

[ChicagoTom]

The only thing accomplished by Live 8 was getting Roger, Nick, Rick, and David all on the stage at the same time. I never would have thought that would have happened.

And that in and of itself made it all fucking worth it.

[Les]

The only thing accomplished by Live 8 was getting Roger, Nick, Rick, and David all on the stage at the same time. I never would have thought that would have happened.

And they sounded fucking great, too.

[B.P.]

If only there was another way to raise awareness about global warming than a huge, energy-consuming concert. Since there's a complete media blackout on the issue, this concert is the first I'd heard of global warming.

[Brandybuck]

Man, the value of Carbon Credits are plummeting. It's Carbon Credit inflation. Al Gore is printing too many CC Certificates. What we really need is a Gold Standard! For every ton of carbon my non-green lifestyle choices spew into the atmosphere, I should get a Liberty Eagle. Think of my children!

[C L]

Wait, all 7 continents? I'd hate to be assigned to play the Antarctic concert. Especially in July!

[P Brooks]

Wait- I thought they were going to run the whole thing with pedal-power generators and solar cells. You mean they're just going to plug into the grid and divert electricity away from those poor, panting grannies in Yuma?

You bastards!

[Nephilium]

P Brooks: You don't understand. This concert follows the philosophy of the Yen Buddhists. If non-green energy is the root of all evil, then by using that energy for my own uses, I'm saving your soul while condemning my own. But it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to help you. I will use your energy, and then seek my own absolution.

Nephilium... with apologies to Terry Pratchett... (just replace energy with money)...

[P Brooks]

It's too bad self-flagellation doesn't generate electricity....

[Matthew]

Hairshirts generate static electricity. . .

[barris]

These liberals who think that just because so-called "scientists" think we're behind global warming means it might be true are the same ones who think the earth is more than 6,000 years old. Thank God people here don't fall for that nonsense.

Also, I heard that many people who think we should conserve energy use energy themselves. Hypocrites!

[Mike Laursen]

What. Nobody has worked in a reference to Al Gore's son getting busted for drugs while speeding in a hybrid vehicle?

[Jim Walsh]

Could the coal-fired electrical demand of bands with ten megawatts of stage lighting undo Al Gore's good intentions?

Not to mention the mess left behind by all those environmentally-conscious music fans...

[LarryA]

Millions led to fear rising seas by An Inconvenient Truth are beginning to wonder about tomorrow's LiveEarth concerts.

Personally, I was really (pleasantly) surprised there weren't any "Fourth of July Fireworks-->Global Warming" essays this week.

Wait, all 7 continents? I'd hate to be assigned to play the Antarctic concert. Especially in July!

Turns out the Rothera Research Station has a rock band, Nunatak. Who knew?

You have to watch an ad first.

[joe]

Just so you know, harrumphing about how the people whose media campaign is kicking your ass are *gasp* using energy in their efforts to get the word out doesn't sound like sour grapes.

At all.

So don't worry.

[joe]

On the other hand, maybe the people whose guts keep telling them that Al Gore wants to destroy civilization and have us all freeze in unlit huts will notice that this concert kinda, sorta, uh, makes them look like hysterical imbeciles.

But I wouldn't count on it. Those are some very dedicated haters.

[Russell]

Really Joe! What's all this about Al wanting us to freeze in unlit huts ?

He's signed off on letting CO2 grow by fully a part per million per year, which would give everyone, even you, a carbon ration of fully 580 grams a day- think of all the heat you can get from a piece of coal the size of a small turnip ,and how brightly your 100 gram nightly candle will illuminate your raw vegetables.

[Cesar]

I'm going to ask this question again. Why are the liberal Democrats pissed about increased oil prices and call it "price gouging" when skyrocketing oil prices are the surest way to reduce carbon emissions?

[oh no]

It is only logical that to cut the emissions of man in half, half of mankind must be cut out.

It is also logical that those who truly believe in everlasting sustainability should be the ones to sacrifice themselves for the sake of mother earth. If you are Green, go kill yourself now, to save the world. As the population begins to increase, once again wise ones will realize the danger, and again, they are the ones who will pay the price gladly. I now see the light in the phrase, "Why would anyone bring children into a world like this." Then again, I might be wrong in all this.

[joe]

Russell, you're just shilling for Small Turnip.

Is Al Gore handing out coal now? That BASTARD!

[joe]

Cesar,

Some of it is just plain old pandering to what they think people want to hear.

Part of it is that rapid and severe increases in energy prices are part of the problem that liberal Democrats want to solve with a smarter energy policy, so they want to highlight the problem.

Personally, I don't like the way gas prices go through the roof when a Bush gets elected and puts an army into the Middle East. 😉

[joe]

It is only logical that to cut the killing of whales in half, half of mankind must be cut out.

[LarryA]

I'm going to ask this question again. Why are the liberal Democrats pissed about increased oil prices and call it "price gouging" when skyrocketing oil prices are the surest way to reduce carbon emissions?

Energy company profits are bad. Profits might be spent on producing more oil or using what we have more efficiently or building alternative nuclear plants. Energy companies shouldn't make those decisions, a Democrat-run government should. Prices should be raised by taxes liberal Democrats can redistribute to their constituents.

[Neu Mejican]

Could the coal-fired electrical demand of bands with ten megawatts of stage lighting undo Al Gore's good intentions?

Not to mention the mess left behind by all those environmentally-conscious music fans...

All these factors are taken into consideration and planned for...
http://www.ecorazzi.com/?p=1566

Of course there is nothing to offset the aesthetic pollution caused by concentrating that much mediocre talent all into one event.

My god what a crap line up.

[Neu Mejican]

Wait, all 7 continents? I'd hate to be assigned to play the Antarctic concert. Especially in July!

http://www.ecorazzi.com/?p=3180

[Russell]

Joe- thank you for reminding us that substituting renewable whale oil to save endangered mineral species like anthracite from extinction is as fundamental a principle of Really Deep Ecology as cutting your whale in half and eating it too.

I wish you had told us sooner, as unmuffled diesel generators burning Wrong Whale trans-fat would raise the tone of any Live Earth production.

[Mark Bahner]

"On the other hand, maybe the people whose guts keep telling them that Al Gore wants to destroy civilization and have us all freeze in unlit huts..."

Not ALL of us. *His* mansion is apparently well-lit. I read he even has--or at least HAD, until it was publicized--NATURAL GAS lights for his pool! Talk about monumental hypocrisy!

[Dave]

Even if you are a person who takes everything Gore says about global warming as the Gospel Truth, it seems like this concert is a silly idea. What is it supposed to accomplish? To draw attention to the issue? I hear about the issue 100 times a day, who is going to be alerted by this?

[joe]

Well, Dave, for one thing, it draws the wingnuts out of the woodwork so their misleading attacks can be refuted.

You know, like Neu Mejican did up there.

[The Children]

who is going to be alerted by this?

WE are!

[Ed]

Global Warming is a vast left-wing conspiracy to advance its agenda of global hegemony (seeing how the whole "democracy/freedom/capitalism" thing is petering out...)

[Russell]

Whoa, Joe:
Neu Mejican said he'd "hate to be assigned to play the Antarctic concert. Especially in July"

Though two billion viewers were led to believe they were watching Live Earth live, Nunatak was shown playing its penguin chorus gig in broad daylight.

The Southern Lights have seen strange sights , but the sun went below the Rothera station horizon last month ,and is out for the winter count.

[joe]

Good job blowing the lid off of the conspiracy by Big Penguin, Russell! The price of liberty is indeed eternal vigilance.

That is the most egregious piece of political dishonesty since my lawsuit against the Neverending Story.

[Russell]

Full Disclosure :
Big Penguin once asked me to write a book.

Big Coal owes Al a lot of fish for the hundred thousand tons or so ( ~500 gigawatt hours per billion TV's @ 6,150 kilojoules/kilowatt-hour @ 38% plant efficiency) it took to power all those un-offset boob tubes.

[Neu Mejican]

Russell,

Don't know the details of the gig's location, but I believe they scouted for locations away from the Rothera station itself...maybe even someplace where there was a little sun like Bellinghuasen or Palmer or other points north.

More on the Nunatak gig.
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/indepth/nunatak/index.php

[Neu Mejican]

This Q&A says they were at Rothera.
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/featured/nunatak/q_and_a.php
Also says it is twilight all day long now...watching the video again looks like twilight plus lighting rig.

Prior to the gig press reports indicate that Nunatak would be filmed a few days before the gig since there is no satellite hook up at Rothera. Extreme tape delay.

The deception runs deep.

[Neu Mejican]

Sun peaks up above the horizon for a bit towards the end...

Noon at a point just north of the Antarctic circle?

[Jim Walsh]

All the hypocritical posturing would be forgivable if musically it wasn't one big-time Suck-O-Rama (for those who didn't see or hear it, imagine a Woodstock where Sha-Na-Na was the musical highlight)...

[Russell]

Neu Mex :
Nature,which also ran a picture of the band casting daylight shadows ,has Nunatak fessing up thus :
"To do it live we would need a very fast satellite link," says Matt Balmer, an electronics engineer and Nunatak's guitarist and songwriter. So the performance will be recorded 'as live' "

Rothera is indeed several degrees inside the circle,and the last ship left in April. Still I think we should allow Nunatak poetic license, and cut them some slack for atmospheric refraction - as in the penguin sunset shot on Adamant

[Russell]

Unless of course the Rothera penguin sunset shot _is_ high noon , in which case Big Klieg Light owes Al another fish

[Neu Mejican]

Russell,

Rothera is indeed several degrees inside the circle

Best I can tell it is about 1 degree inside (Latitude 67?34' S, Longitude 68?08' W).

Antarctic circle = 66? 33? 39?

So they are something like 70 miles south of the line. Atmospheric refraction can move the sunrise line about 25 miles (is it more down there?).

July 18th is the next sunrise at Rothera...only two weeks away.

Now elevation should also mean something.

[Lamar]

but...but...but....Al Gore has a big house that uses energy!!!

[Jim Treacher]

Agreed, people shouldn't criticize Gore for the way he lectures people about their energy usage while using incredibly huge amounts of energy himself. Because... well, they just shouldn't, that's all.

[Lamar]

Totally agree, Jimbo. All we gotta do is find an unsympathetic poster child for any cause we disagree with and *boom* that cause is automatically worthless. That's how I sleep at night while not giving a shit about anything. How do you do it?

[Jim Treacher]

I make broad assertions and ask leading questions, that usually does the trick.

[Mark Bahner]

"Totally agree, Jimbo. All we gotta do is find an unsympathetic poster child for any cause we disagree with and *boom* that cause is automatically worthless."

Well, when someone (e.g., Al Gore) tells me that the cause he is advocating is a big moral issue, and then I find out that he himself apparently massively violates the cause he is advocating, why shouldn't that discredit the idea that his cause is a big moral issue?

"That's how I sleep at night while not giving a shit about anything."

How I sleep at night is by giving a damn about things that are important. It's pretty clear to me that global warming isn't one of them. And Al Gore's behavior seems to be just more evidence of that.